1SS 
Annual Report of the 
and the general adaptation of the means needed to secure the ends 
sought. In fact he must study and think; for the penalty of plac¬ 
ing power in the hands of ignorance is that it will inure to the 
harm of all concerned, and it is an open question worthy of extensive 
investigation, whether the average farmer of to-day is not very far 
from being equal in every respect to the laborers in other avoca¬ 
tions; but machinery rightly constructed and fitted to perform the 
work to which it is assigned is the most efficient means by which he 
is to raise himself to a commanding position among his fellows. 
If the farmer of to-day is to be helped by labor-saving machinery, 
he must not permit his wants to exceed his means, nor expand his 
credit as he expands his facilities—but rather as a rule let him ad¬ 
vance towards more thorough methods, cleaner culture, and more 
constant results, for it should be known by every cultivator of the 
soil, that through a right cultivation he may very nearly eliminate 
the influences of heat and cold, wet and drouth, making a very 
narrow margin for variation from climatic influences in the yearly 
average yield of his fields. 
As a nation we are but in the infancy of agricultural science. 
Our fertile soil has nearly been our ruin, in that it has so readily 
yielded bountifully to the merest excuse for cultivation, and has 
therefore been quickly ruined by excessive cropping, and has be¬ 
come as rapidly the hot-bed for a host of pernicious weeds to get the 
ascendency and choke out more useful plants. 
Our machinery in some respects is the best in the world, and yet 
some of it, in some respects is bungling, heavy, and excessively 
costly, and much of it constructed with such poor material and so 
poorly put together that it is little else than an imposition to put 
them oil the market. Then again, the farmer may justly complain 
of the patent laws and their workings, which entail a burden ad¬ 
ditional to the legitimate one of manufacture, of nearly 100 per 
cent, in some implements; and further, we shall never have a per¬ 
fect combined reaper and mower, until about a score of more of 
patents terminate, so that the principles they cover can be united 
in one machine. 
Last but not least of the difficulties which environ the perfection 
of agricultural machinery, and also its use, is the fact that it is to 
be used in dirt and dust, must be driven on rough, uneven land, and 
be more or less exposed to the action of wet and dry, heat and 
