36 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
iy expended. We have seen one field drained, 
and its water carried off on to the adjacent field 
only to make it more wet and valueless than ever. 
The only way in which farm improvements may 
be managed with economy, is to regard 
the farm as a whole, and to make every improve¬ 
ment with reference to a system which shall em¬ 
brace the whole. A house to suit the occupant, can 
be built much cheaper at the outset, than to modify 
the plan and make successive additions, in so 
many successive years. The architect finds a 
plan indispensable to his work. The whole work 
is projected from cellar to garret, the size of every 
room and its estimated cost put down. The ship 
..uilder does not touch a stick of timber, until he 
has his model completed, and the length and size 
of every timber in the vessel estimated. 
The farm, as it ought to be, is simply a machine 
for the production of crops, as the ship is a ma¬ 
chine for navigating the water. It has to be made 
out of the materials which nature furnishes, all 
requiring more or less modification, to adapt them 
to the purposes of production. It is manifest, 
then, that the first step of the farmer toward im¬ 
provement, is to form a clear idea of what he 
wants in a farm. He is the owner of, say three 
hundred acres of land, embracing the usual variety 
of forest, swamp, pasture, and tillage. Some of 
it is light sandy land, some heavy clay, and an¬ 
other portion is so rocky, that it has never been 
plowed. The forest of fifty acres, he wishes to 
retain for fuel, and timber, so that that may be re¬ 
garded as a fixture. He has determined upon a 
rotation of crops embracing a six years course. 
He therefore needs but six large fields to carry on 
discourse of cropping. Deducting ten acres for 
his farm buildings, lawn, garden, orchard, &c, he 
has 240 to be cut up into six lots of forty acres 
each- This is his plan. His farm, as it lies now, 
is divided into twenty lots, or more, has rocks to 
be removed, brush pastures to be cleared up, and 
Bwamns to drain. This cannot all be done in one 
year, nut in six years, he can do it, and make it 
pay. So he draws his map of the farm as it is, 
and determines to begin his improvements upon 
the lower side, where there is a good outlet for 
all the water that he wishes to drain off He 
finds upon this ->ide of the farm, four or five fields 
to be thrown into one ; a swamp of five acres to 
oe drained ; and a swale of three acres with a 
nard clay subsoil,' that must be ftirnished with 
tile ; and several gravelly knolls that need a coat¬ 
ing of clay. 
With a map before him, the farmer can project 
all these improvements, as he sits by the Winter 
fire. He can calculate very accurately how many 
rods jf new fence will need to be made, how 
many rods of ditch must be dug, and how many 
tiles he must order, and about what will be the 
:ost of the whole operation. He can tell, with- 
•a a fraction, how many loads of clay and muck 
. 3 will need upon the gravel hills, to cover them 
an inch thick. His whole pathway of improve¬ 
ment will be clear and luminous, and he will not 
become discouraged, and leave a thing half done, 
like a man who is feeling his way in the dark. 
The assurance that he is on the path of improve¬ 
ment is worth everything to the farmer. There 
is no goou reason why he should not pursue his 
purposes with as much cheerfulness, and con¬ 
fidence of success, as the house or the ship-build¬ 
er. Let him map his farm, and go forward in the 
execution of a plan, resolutely, and patiently, and 
in due time, he will have a machine for producing 
crops, admirably adapted to his wants, and to his 
market. 
-- ■ »«— -- — - 
Thou canst not joke an enemy into a friend; 
but thou mays! a friend into an enemv 
Reapers and Mowers, &c. 
FIELD TRIAL OF IMPLEMENTS BY THE UNITED 
STATES AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, JULY, 1857. 
To the Editor of the Americn Agriculturist. 
I have received a copy of the Report of the 
above Field Trial of Harvesters, and as it was 
considered the most important, or, at least, at¬ 
tracted the most attention, of any yet made in 
America, with your permission I will offer a few 
remarks thereon. 
All who went into this trial supposed it was to 
be a fair and honorable one, and that the Report 
thereof was to be accurate and complete. Let us 
see how these just expectations on the part of the 
public have been fulfilled. 
It appears by Table A, page 71, that on the first 
and most important day’s trial, in a clover field, the 
machine awarded the First Prize, did not work, 
while its half brother, and substantially the same 
kind of machine, broke, and did not cut its lot. By 
all that is just, these machines should have then 
been immediately “ ruled out." But instead of 
this, they were permitted to go on; and as the 
Prize Machine worked “ perfectly,” according to 
the “ Points ” (40), on the second day’s trial, 
among straight and dry timothy grass, &c., it was 
taken and deemed to have worked perfectly through¬ 
out the trial, and thus awarded the First Prize ! 
On the same principle, the very worst machine 
on the ground might have been set to work to cut 
a single foot of grass, which, by great good luck, 
having accomplished “perfectly,” it should then 
be adjudged to have worked “perfectly” through¬ 
out the seven days’ Trial, and receive the First 
Prize 1 Would not this be just as fair in the latter 
case as in the former 1 I think we may so infer 
from what the chairman of the Board of Judges, 
Hon. John Stanton Gould, says, in the following 
words: 
“ If a majority of you agree that I have construed 
the Scale of Points correctly, viz. : that merit in 
1 Quality of Work ’ depends on merit in all kinds 
of work, and not on one kind of work alone—the 
awards will stand as in the report.” 
Tbe above extract alludes, as I suppose, to 
“ Report ” in Table H, page 79, in which he gives 
the First Prize to another machine. See Mr. 
Gould’s letter, page 85. 
Suppose on a “Trial” of speed,at an Agricul¬ 
tural Exhibition of road horses, that one of the 
competitors did not start the first heat, or if so, he 
broke down after the first few steps and withdrew ; 
and then being permitted the advantage of starting 
on a second day, on another and more favorable 
course or track for his powers, he should win this 
second heat; would any man be found so bold and 
unjust, as to vote him the first prize 1 
I am told by farmers who have used this famous 
First Prize machine, that it does not usually 
work well in clover ; it chokes badly, &c. Was 
this the reason why it was kept from essaying its 
merits, or rather demerits, on tbe first day’s 
Trial, at Syracuse 1 "Discretion" was, in this 
case, perhaps, “ the better part of valor." 
Tbe sub-committees were instructed to report, 
on no less than sixty-one different “ Points.” See 
pages 23, 4, 5, and 6. But many of these “ Points ” 
were entirely disregarded ; others were imperfectly 
reported on ; while important notes and figures 
were defaced and obliterated, and even lost; and 
yet, with all these garblings and shortcomings, 
the decisions of the prizes are made up with the 
same bold front as if these Reports had been ren¬ 
dered perfect! 
Let us hear what the chairman of the final Re¬ 
port himself, says, on this head. The italics are 
mine. 
“ Everything that calls off the attention of the 
judges from the working of the machine, is 
very certain to cause the omission of some ma 
terial fact in their note books, and the continuity 
of the whole chain of observation is broken by 
the absence of a single link." Page 18 
“ Blank books and pencils must be provided for 
the judges, otherwise the minutes will be kept 
on loose papers, subject to obliteration by rub¬ 
bing, and to loss. Small as this item of precau¬ 
tion may appear, the whole of the objects of the 
trial may be frustrated from the neglect of it.” 
Page 19. 
“ Interests of great magnitude, both to the manu¬ 
facturer and to the farmer, are put at hazard, and 
all concerned, are morally bound to take every 
precaution against error, and every security for the 
discovery of truth." Page 19. 
“ It is obvious that W\e greatest care should be taken 
on the one hand, to give every opportunity to 
develop the good points of each machine ; and 
on the other, to expose everything that is wrong, 
for the protection ot the farmer." Page 20 . 
Good and weighty words are the above quota¬ 
tions from the Report under review. Would that 
they had been fairly acted upon. If they had 
been, in my opinion, the First Prize wonld have 
gone to a very different machine than that to 
which it was awarded. I next come to another 
kind of quotation from the Report before us. 
“ It is often overlooked, that time as well as force 
is an element in the consideration of power. A 
variation of ten pounds in the draft of two ma¬ 
chines is looked upon by many as a mere baga¬ 
telle. It is not considered that this force, is ex¬ 
tended throughout every second of time oi 
working. If, then, the two machines work for ten 
hours, the difference of force is not represented 
by lOlbs, but by that number multiplied into 
the number of seconds in ten hours, viz. :— 
lOh x 60m x 60s x lOlbs = 360,000lbs.” Pace 
51. 
Now, in accordance with the above calculation, 
if we look at Table D, page 75, we shall see that 
the draft of the First Prize machine is put down 
at 418.31bs., while that of the minimum, Hussey’s 
(and not Burrall’s, as stated in the Report, page 
49), is noted with side draft 354.41bs, Difference 
between the two, in round numbers, 041bs., equal 
to 2,304,0001bs. for the day’s work. That is to 
sav, the horses in the First Prize machine will 
have to drag two millions, three hundred and four 
thousand pounds more, in ten hours (an ordinary 
day’s work), attached to that machine, than if at¬ 
tached to Hussey’s machine ; and yet we find that 
in the general “ Scale of Points,” made up in the 
final Table, page 87, where 100 Points are the 
standard of perfection, that the First Prize ma¬ 
chine gets 61, while unfortunate Mr. Hussey gets 
nothing—absolutely nothing ! What an arbitrary 
Scale of Points. It will require something more 
than the blind figure of Justice, standing erect 
and poising the balances in her hand, to reconcile 
the unsophisticated farmers to such a turning oi 
the scales. 
The Committee, in their Report on the First 
Prize machine, page 44, say, that its “ weight, 
price, and complexity,” are a “ drawback to 
its excellence.” In this, I have no doubt, that 
the farmers who pay its high “price,” and puz¬ 
zle their brains over its “ complexity,” and the 
poor horses that are doomed to drag this extra 
two millions, three hundred and four thousand 
pounds day after day, in the heat of harvest time, 
will unanimously agree in opinion with the said 
Committee. 
But I must conclude for the present; but, with 
your good leave, Mr. Editor, I will pursue this 
subject in a future number, as I have scarcely ar 
rived yet at the threshold of the merits of this Re¬ 
port and its decisions. H. L. 
Syracuse, January 20 , 1858. 
---—»•«---- 
What part of a ship 's a farmer 1 The tiller, oi 
course. 
