316 THE FLORIST AND 



Mr. Landreth had understood that, owing to the great diversity of opinion 

 which prevailed, awards had been made to several of the competitors. 



On motion of Mr. Landreth, that the Secretary be and he is hereby 

 authorized to send a copy of the published minutes of the Society, recently 

 prepared in pamphlet form, to every kindred Society in the Union. Which 

 was so ordered. 



Dr. Kennedy hoped that the discussion on Reaping and Mowing Machines, 

 postponed from last meeting, would be resumed. Hitherto our Society had 

 devoted too little attention to agricultural machinery, a department in which 

 our countrymen would probably attain to the highest excellence. In the 

 improvement of stock, in irrigation, in drainage, in the cultivation of soils 

 and the application of concentrated manures, we competed with Europe 

 unequally. There labor was cheaper, and wealth more concentrated. The 

 high price of labor, while it prevented expensive experiments in agriculture, 

 stimulated to the invention and perfection of labor-saving machinery. 

 Reaping and mowing machines were cases in point. American agriculture 

 had recived no greater boon for many years, and agricultural societies could 

 do no greater service to the cause, than by increasing the list of their pre- 

 miums for improved implements and newly-invented machinery. In England, 

 where such inventions were less needed, their production was vastly more 

 stimulated by prizes. M'Cormick's Reaper was the great feature of the 

 Agricultural Department of the World's Fair at London. Yet the speaker 

 had there seen a drain-laying machine which dug the trench, laid the tiles 

 and covered them up by power applied to a windlass at a remote part of 

 the field ! Tile-making machines came properly within the province of the 

 agriculturist. Tiles were now made in Europe in a continuous tube, the clay 

 being forced through proper orifices in steel plates, by the pressure of a 

 piston (as in the manufacture of maccaroni), or by friction of rollers. The 

 tubes as they are formed are cut into appropriate lengths. Dr. K. had 

 failed to find such tiles in Albany, where he had been on the preceding 

 Saturday. He farther explained their action, and also that of the tile-laying 

 machine, above cited. 



Mr. Sheridan contended that drain-laying machines might do in a light, 

 well-worked soil, in Europe, but not in the refractory, stony soils of America. 

 He could not imagine a subsoil plough which could cut a drain without 

 leaving a wide, open trench. 



Mr. Samuel Williams had seen such ploughs. They burrowed, as it were, 

 the lower part, not improperly called a shoe, connected with the frame of 

 the plough, by means of a thin, strong piece of iron, which, like a coulter, 



