184 
Annual Report of the 
The boj's and girls can be spared to go to school or for a picnic 
or ride; money maybe had for music and pictures, to make a home 
in fact and not in word only, and the children will be far less likely 
to spend their evenings away from home and mother, and far less 
likely to abandon the farm for the city or the over-crowded pro¬ 
fessions. 
There is far more of manliness in directing brute-labor, and using 
feet and hands of iron and steel, than in crooking the back, stoop¬ 
ing the shoulders, and hardening and deforming the hands; much 
more of dignity in mixing brain and muscle than in the use of 
mere brawn; much more of true development in educating both 
head and hand than in either alone. Man was made to have do¬ 
minion over the beasts of the field for his use and enjoyment, and 
yet how many make mere beasts of themselves, both in the kind 
and amount of labor performed, often delving all day with a hoe to 
accomplish what a horse, hitched to a good cultivator, would do in 
one hour, and do it much more effectually. 
I have known a man to spend all day cutting and putting up 
one-half acre of grass, when the same work could have been per¬ 
formed with a mower and horse-rake in one hour; or, to make a 
different comparison, he could cut and put up in one day as many 
acres of grass with the proper machinery, as he could alone with 
scythe and rake in ten days, leaving him nine days in which to 
earn means to pay for his machinery and team—and yet the team 
is not fairly chargeable against the machinery indicated, it being 
already upon the farm as a part of the ordinary equipment at all 
times. 
There are but few neighborhoods where a first class reaper and 
mower, purchased at a reasonable cost, and receiving for work done 
on other farms a fair price per acre, could not pay for itself in two 
seasons, there being no need of one on every farm, unless from two 
« 
to four hundred acres are in grass and grain. By a little calcula¬ 
tion in seeding time, and in variety of grasses sown for mowing, 
haying and harvesting may be made to extend to forty working 
days; and averaging eight acres a day, at seventy-five cents per 
acre, we have $240. as earnings for one year, and crediting one- 
haif of this to the machine, we have $120. to credit against first 
cost; and fixing the working life of the machine at five years, we 
haye $600. as earnings with which to pay first cost, repairs etc., 
