The next matter I have to touch upon is
AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.
In 1831, we had thrashing machines and double plows, and even multiple
plows had been proposed, tried, and abandoned. Reaping machines had
been experimented with and abandoned; sowing machines were in use, but
not many of them; clod crushers and horse rakes were also in use; but
as a fact plowing was done by horse power with a single furrow at a
time, mowing and reaping were done by the scythe or the sickle,
sheaves were bound by hand, hay was tedded by hand-rakes, while all
materials and produce were moved about in carts and in wagons drawn by
horses. At the present time we have multiple plows, making five or six
furrows at a time, these and cultivators also, driven by steam,
commonly from two engines on the head lands, the plow being in
between, and worked by a rope from each engine, or if by one engine, a
capstan on the other head land, with a return rope working the plow
backward and forward; or by what is known as the roundabout system,
where the engine is fixed and the rope carried round about the field;
or else plows and cultivators are worked by ropes from two capstans
placed on the two head lands, and driven by means of a quick-going
rope, actuated by an engine, the position of which is not changed.
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