IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURE. 
141 
paced movement of the cradler. A few men in the harvest 
field very soon absorb, at two dollars per day, the cost of a 
reaper ; two or more should unite in the purchase of these labor 
saving machines, if they own small farms. 
There are undoubtedly very many machines of different 
kinds offered to the farmer which cannot prove otherwise 
than a failure, but they do no more disprove the value of 
farm machinery than a counterfeit gold piece would disprove 
the value of the genuine coin. 
Many, doubtless, would say, how are we to buy those labor- 
saving machines ? We answer, if you have more land than 
you can profitably till, sell part of it. The secret of success¬ 
ful farming has been said to be “much labor on little land,” 
and the more we learn practically and theoretically of Agricul¬ 
ture, the firmer becomes our conviction that it is so. Could we 
be less covetous of surface, of large farms, and more anx¬ 
ious for productiveness, striving for better crops rather than 
for “one acre more,” it would add incalculably to our pros¬ 
perity. 
“ A little farm well tilled, 
A little barn well filled, 
A little wife well willed. J ' 
A few farmers are successful because their soil, naturally, is 
rich in all the elements of fertility, and suited in character and 
situation to the growth of large crops ; but these farms form 
but a small proportion of the surface of our county. To be the 
owner of a larger farm than we can begin to improve and culti¬ 
vate, is the passion of the American farmer. Nature is boun¬ 
tiful, but bountiful in weeds, as well as in corn and potatoes. 
When the land cannot produce fair crops of each at the same 
time, it is the province of the farmer to help his planting ahead, 
and he should put in no more seed than he can afford to give the 
proper preparation of soil and culture. 
While one farmer raises from fifty to eighty bushels of corn 
to the acre, another raises only from ten to thirty ; and so with 
other crops, and yet the soil may have been originally the same. 
But the one has put his labor in proper shape ; he has sought 
