AGRICULTURAL MACIIINERY. One Of the fea tures of the agricultural history of the past fifty years has been the ostensive 1111.111(1111l11011 of ma chinery. Sowing nutehines, cultivators, and all the machines that displace the his are of com par:ttitel. resent illVention. As early as 33 Ati„ according to Pliny, the Gauls used a eal• with projeetions in front which cut or Was oil' the heads of grain:- but until recent times little ef fort was made to invent or saving machinery. owing to popular prejudice. The t I tr sting m101 lilt was not it Vented Until 17$6, and an attempt was made early in the century to construct reaping nuteltines, but small success was won until the time of Bell, Hussey, and McCormick. (See IZE.texats, I1EA• INO.) in the hay harvest, horse power is ap plied by means of the mowing-machine, the hay-tedder, the rake, and maehines for loading and unloading the hay. Another class of ma chines, as, for example, the one for threshing, deal with the gathered crops. Th.• use of it system of maehinery like that applied to dairy ing has made great changes in certain lines of agriculture. From horse power, too, there has I•C11 a partial change to Stearn power. About the year D150 the steam plow began to Is used in England. One sras..ial advantage in the minds of English farmers was s the depth to which the soil could be turned; moreover, the engine was utilized for many purposes on the large estates of that country. The great advantage of steam facto machinery in America has been fO• operations like that of thresh ing. hut the use of steam for this purpose has not proved especially evonomical. Improved farm machinery in America has made possible the rapid settling of the new States and the successful gathering of their immense harvests. See IlAttvEsr AND ilmtvEsTtNu; CS, AC it ICULTURAL; TURES Ill ND AND TIIRESIII NO MACHINES; PLOW. PLOWINU. in an article On the progress of in the United States.
.Mr. G. K. lloImes, of the Department of Agri culture, states that "the amount of human labor now ( I tinti) required to produce a bushel of wheat from beginning to end is on an average only ten minutes, whereas in 1830 the blue was three hours and three minutes. During the in terval bet Weell these years the cost of the human labor required to produce this bushel of wheat declined from milt, to cents. In the contrast thus presented the heavy, clumsy plow of the day Was used in ls:;0; the seed was sown by hand, and was harrowed into the ground by the drawing of bushes over it the grain was cut with sickles, hauled to a barn, and some time heftire the following spring was thrashed with llails; the winnowing was &me with a sheet attached to rods, On which the grain was placed with a shovel and then tossed up and down by two men until the wind had blown out the (-half. In the latter year, on the contrary,
the ground was plowed and pulverized with the same operation by a disk plow; the seed was sown with a nwchanival seeder drawn by horses; the reaping, thrashing, and sinking of the wheat Were done With the einnhined reaper and thrasher drawn by horses, and then the wheat was ready to haul to the granary." SYsTr.m IN FARMING. There is a movement in agriculture to provide for haml demands, to take advantage of growing centres of population, to strive for excellence and exact system in place of haphazard methods. The evaporator has brozulened the fruit market. The canning indus try has utilized fruits and vegetables and saved the agricultural balanees in seetions. Cold storage. rapid transportation, and the refriger ator ear have reduced risks and shortened apparent distances. New Zealand is in the mar kets of Loudon. Canada and the Cnited States have a profitable apple trade with England. The expenses of transportation have been reduced to a fraction of the previous cost, and thus the wheat hunts of Dakota have been laid alongside those of both New England and old England, with gain for the one and with loss for the others. In dairying there has been one of the triumidis of revolt agriculture. Specialization, with seientitie method and improveil machinery, has brought excellence without destruction of the market. Dairy products, in contrast with others, are higher than they were fifty years ago. Car ried on largely as c(tOperative undertakings, creameries and cheese factories (see DAIRYING) have increased in Europe and America. A large industry in England. dairying on the coiiperal ire basis has been of the increase in Franc•.. The Netherlands, famous for its careful is a leading dairy. country. Switzerland and Canada export large quantities of cheese. Den ma•k un longer competes for the wheat trade. but has heroine one of the most successful of dairy countries. exporting immense quantities of high grade butter to England.