292 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMER. 



Oct. 



From th« Boston Cultivator. 



Machinery in Agriculture. 



The advantage, both in an individual and na- 

 tional point of view, which has been derived from 

 t!ie use of improved implements and machinery in 

 Hirriculture, is seldom fully realized. Who can 

 estimate the immense benefits which' have already 

 resulted from the use of mowing and reaping ma- 

 <t!iine3 in this country, or state their equivalent in 

 liiind labor? It is not too much to say, that to 

 Viirious modern inventions in agricultural ma- 

 chinery, is to be attributed, in a great degree, the 

 :i;)ility of the loyal portion of the country to sus- 

 t.iin itself under the severe trials induced by civil 

 war. When it became necessary to take from the 

 industrial classes of the community nearly a mil- 

 Uon of men, to form an army of defence against 

 traitors, the effect of that draft on the production 

 v'f articles essential to our subsistence was consid- 

 ered with some anxiety. Some of our own people 

 '.•v)uld not suppress the fear that our agricultural 

 [.roducts could not be kept up ; while our enemies 

 ;i broad boldly flattered themselves, that instead ol 

 ^ ipplying foreign nations with food, as had been 

 (inr custom, we should be unable to supply our 

 selves ! 



Now that those fears have proved groundless, 

 :iud those prophecies false, it is proper that we 

 ^houM devote a moment to the consideration of 

 the question. How, or by what means, have we 

 li'^en supported? There cannot be a reasonable 

 iloubt that the substitution of improved imple- 

 ments and machinery for the labor of the men 

 who have left the field of agriculture for the field 

 e.f battle, has, at least, prevented any diminution 

 i.i the amount of our meats and breadstuffs. It 

 would be a matter of great interest and no trifling 

 ::aportance, to know the number of mowing ma- 

 e'.iines, reaping machines, horse-takes, and horse- 

 1 itchforks that has been used in the loyal States 

 liie present season, as well as the number of corn- 

 :ilanting machines, grain-drills, broadcast sowing 

 machines, threshing machines, etc. We do not 

 Inow whether it enters into the plan of the C»m- 

 eiissioner of Agriculture to obtain statistics of 

 This kind or not, but that they would be valuable 

 is obvious. 



There is no part of the country where more or 

 'ess of the machines named cannot be used advan- 

 tageously. The demand for some of them has 

 been increasing for several years, and during this 

 s.iason has been so great, that it has been difficult 

 t') buy, unless engaged sometime previously, a 

 ;:;ood mowing machine or horse-rake between the 

 Atlantic coast and the Missouri river. But though, 

 as before stated, labor-saving machines may be 

 used to some extent everywhere, it is the West, 

 especially the prairie region, that presents the 

 ,i;reatest inducements for their use. Probably no 

 other part of the globe, of the same extent, com- 

 bines equal fertility with smoothness of surface 

 and other facilities for the use of such machines. 

 It is to this new region — new so far as regards 

 I altivation — that we are mainly indebted for the 

 vast surplus of human sustenance from which our 

 manufacturing and commercial communities and 



our armies are supplied, leaving for export quanti- 

 ties beyond the means of transportation. Such 

 progress in population and production as is pre- 

 sented by the Northwestern States, is without a 

 parallel. 



Previous to what is known as the Black Hawk 

 war, cultivation was almost wholly unknown in 

 this region. A few small military posts were scat- 

 tered at intervals of hundreds of miles over the 

 country, and around the old FrcHch settlements 

 small tracts of land were subjected to a culture 

 little less rude than that practiced by the aborigi- 

 nes. In 1832, General Scott, in his expedition 

 against Black Hawk and his warriors, carried a 

 portion of his troops to Chicago in the first steam- 

 boat that ever landed at that place — it could not 

 be called a town or even a village, for there were 

 but two or three buildings except those which 

 belonged to the fort. What a contract compared 

 with the northwestern metropolis of to-day, which, 

 after an intervnl of only thirty years, has a hundred 

 and fifty thousand inhabitants and is acknowledged 

 as the greatest gniin mart of the world ! 



The men who were engaged in subduing the 

 Indians saw the fatness of the land, and when they 

 returned to their homes spread abroad glowing 

 accounts as to its advantages. From this time the 

 settlement of the country was rapid, and the 

 changes which have been wrought seem marvel- 

 lous. 



Neither the farmers of the West nor any other 

 part of the country, have succeeded in substituting 

 steam for animal power in cultivating their lands. 

 Very exaggerated accounts were published a few 

 years ago in regard to Mr. Fawkes's steam-plough- 

 ing machine. We never saw any evidence that it 

 was likely to succeed, and it is said that Fawkes 

 himself has finally abandoaed the machine in dis- 

 gust on the very field where the last trial of it 

 took place. Ploughing, therefore, is still done by 

 horses, mules, or oxen. But after the ground has 

 been ploughed and got into condition for planting 

 or sowing, machines which make a great saving of 

 hand labor may be used. If Indian corn is the 

 crop to be grown, it may be planted with machines 

 which will do the work at the rate of from twelve 

 to twenty acres a day; »nd even the cultivation of 

 the crop may be chiefly done by a machine on 

 which a man rides over the field, hoeing ten to 

 fifteen acres a day. If wheat or other small grain 

 is to be sown, it is put in by machines which sow 

 either in drills or broadcast — the quantity of seed 

 to be sown and its distribution regulated with 

 great exactness — and any person who can guide a 

 horse or a pair of horses, can perform all the man- 

 ual labor required in the operation. Nothing more 

 is usually requit ed till the harvest, when the gram 

 is cut either with reaping machines or heading 

 machines. Some of the former are self-raking — 

 that is, the grain is raked off by a self-acting appa- 

 ratus — the driver of the horses, as he sits on the 

 machine, performing all the manual labor required 

 in its operation. Some machines have an appara- 

 tus for binding the grain attached to them. The 

 practical utility of these binders has not yet been 

 fully demonstrated, though there does not appear 

 to be any insuperable obstacle to their success. 

 The grain is thrashed by machines, either from 

 shocks in the field, or from stacks, or in barns, as 

 expediency or convenience may dictate. In either 

 case machines ma; be used which thresh and 



