THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



be in a gelding, nor so much, even. This 

 is only the profit of one year. 



The same can be done for a succession 

 of years. And you can just as well keep 

 a span of mares on your farm, and, after 

 two or three years, have a span of fine 

 horses to sell every year, as to keep a lot 

 of stock which will neither increase in 

 number and value. 



Now, if you keep geldings, they are not 

 so hardy naturally, we think, and do not 

 live so long, and when once done with 

 work, are of no manner of account to any 

 one, and mercy requires you to knock 

 them on the head. On the contrary, when 

 your mares are advanced somewhat in 

 years, or if they become lame from any 

 cause, you can still, under ordinary circum- 

 stances, make them of great service to 

 you by raising colts. 



But there are certain kinds of labor for 

 which the gelding is better adapted. They" 

 are generally, we think, more fleet, and 

 consequently better fitted for roadsters. — 

 They are also possessed of more muscular 

 power, and, consequently, better fitted for 

 heavy draughts. 



We could find many purposes to which 

 geldings are better adapted than mares. — 

 We would, therefore; advise not only far- 

 mers, but all who do not severely (ask 

 their horses with labor, to keep mares, by 

 all means. We would also advise them 

 to obtain the best mares, and the services 

 of the best stallions, as the colts will sell 

 for enough more to doubly pay the trouble 

 and expense. And, besides the profit to 

 the raiser of horses, the community would 

 be benefited by an increase in number, and 

 a decrease in the price of horses in a few 

 years. 



A farmer who keeps only two horses, 

 and both geldings, will be compelled to 

 purchase a team of some one else when 

 his is done with work ; whereas, if his team 

 is composed of mares, he is preparing a 

 team to take their places when they are 

 turned to take their rest, either on account 

 of old age, or for any other cause. 



Fanners should keep as, little non-pro- 

 ducing stock around ihem as possible.— 

 Everything should be made to pay the best 

 possible per centage, with fair usage. — 

 Then, we say to farmers, sell your geld- 

 ing and purchase mares, and see if our 

 advise is not good in the end.— Northwest- 

 ern Farmer. 



The Present and the Past of the Imple- 

 ments of Agriculture. 



At a period in our social history some- 

 what more than a thousand years ago, 

 such was the poverty of the husbandmen 

 and the wretched condition of husbandry, 

 that it was the custom for six or eight in- 

 dividuals to club together their scanty 

 means to procure a plough and oxen 

 wherewith to drive it — hedging them- 

 selves round in their social organization 

 with many quaint laws, which in the mi- 

 nuteness of their details showed how im- 

 portant to them was their association to- 

 gether, how miserably scanty their means, 

 when they had to contribute their mite to 

 the purchase of an instrument — and this 

 so rude, that by enactment about the same 

 period we have alluded to, no man was 

 allowed to guide a plough unless he could 

 first construct it, and make, moreover, the 

 twisted willow withes with which his 

 wretched oxen drew it. 



In the year of grace 1857, a town of 

 England, rich in historical associations, 

 possessed of monuments older far than 

 the period we have above referred to, 

 welcomed with arch triumphal, and ban- 

 ners flaunting, the annual gathering of an 

 agricultural society, numbering its mem- 

 bers by thousands, contributing of their 

 means, not like their brethren of old, to 

 secure assistance in their individual ope- 

 rations merely, but to collect information 

 and detail experience, and to scatter them 

 broadcast over the land, that all might 

 participate in the benefit of th^ir associa- 

 tion. At this great gathering of agricul- 

 turists, it will be the duty of the historian 

 in after-times to relate, such was the con- 

 dition to which the science of agriculture 

 had attained, and such the extent of the 

 mechanism which aided her operations, 

 that of parties exclusively devoted to the 

 making of these aids, no fewer than 154 

 exhibited nearly 1,000 implements, so 

 wide in their range of operations that a 

 classification of them would take up nearly 

 100 divisions. These two periods we may 

 take to represent the past and the present 

 condition of agricultural mechanism. Nor 

 let us, in the strength and^ vigour of our 

 riper years, think slightingly of the hum- 

 ble efforts of those who have preceded 

 us in the march of civilization. W'ho can 

 tell how much of our life-energy we owe 



