The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1876-10-20
from my encounters in public life at Wash


y Philadelphia. Many of you will remem
: Der to have seen it, and those who hav
8 not, should not fail to look for it in tn
/ Agricultural Building. 1t is conspicuous
4 ly elevated upon platform in that portion
: of the building assigned to the State O
b New Hampshire (the State of Webster
| nativity and Immediately in front of tn
t platform stands pair of mammoth hogs
S stuffed, the largest of which is said to hav
weighed when alive over 1 300 pounds
TINS celebrated plow and these prodigiou
+ animals form an interesting group which
Q is always centre of attraction, and verv
J curious are the comments which they elici
from the crowds which gather arount
} them. One observer remarked in my hear
ing, swell, Daniel may have been great
statesman, but he didn't know how tc
, make plow." L heard another solilo.
! quizlng aloud and wondering whether lie
always kept those pigs to run it. The
pillow Is about ID feet long and is ridicu.
iously old-tashioned, rusty and enormously
heavy, presenting clumsy contrast to the
polished steel clippers, double share clip
pers, the jaunty riding plows with UNI
brella seats, the glittering gang plows, and
other plows of fashionable and fascinating
model which one exhibited in the same
building. Indeed it would seem about as
reasonable at the present day to attempt
to pillow with the unwieldy and unshapely
implement in vogue half century ago,
as it would to put pair of hogs in har-
ness.
The marked improvement in agricultur-
al implements, and the surprising inven-
lions of labor-saving machinery, are topics
which have been too often enlarged upon
to admit of anything very new being said,
and yet an address upon an occasion like
the present, under the auspices of socie-
ty which has very appropriately mixed the
mechanical interest in its organization,
might be deemed deficient without at
least some allusion to them.
The human intellect has never appeared
to greater advantage than in its mastery
manipulation OF material, and its harness
ing of the physical forces of nature by the
mechanical engineers of modern times
10 htly commemorate the contrasted
achievements OF the present with the past,
aCentennial interval is in fact unnecessari-
ly long. 1t is not wild eXaggeration but
sober truth to say that during the last half
century, agriculture, the oldest of the arts,
has made more real progress than during
the preceding 5000 years. And while it
is from that the chemist, the mineralogist,
the botanist, and the entomologist, have
each in their way contributed noDly to
this result, yet it is no disparagement to
them to concede the position of preem-
inence to the inventor and mechanic.
Compared with the styles of implements
i'll use only few years ago, the numerous la
bor-saving contrivances now competing for
the farmers choice seems as if perfection
had at last been Appropriated But we
must recollect that the end is not yet. All
the brains in the world have not yet gone
into iron and steel and wood, and there is
many an undeveloped idea that has yet to
be cunningly expressed in lever and wheel
and cog and pinion and band and slot
1t may seem bold to say it, but | think all
who have reflected both upon what has been
done and upon what remains yet to be
accomplished, will concede that the art of
agricultural mechanics is still in its infan-
cy. You will remember that it was only
so late as 1851 that the American reapers
of Mccormick Sc Hussey were first intro
duced to the notice of the British public.
At that time, the year of the first interna-
tional exposition, or Worlds Fair at Lon
don, the farmers of Europe were still har-
vesting with the cradle, and in fact MANY
OF them had never abandoned the classic
sickle. But the reapers of Mccormick and
Hussey, (which astonished Europe quarter
OF century ago, are now deemed anti
quated along side of the improved Cham
pipn, the Kirby and Buckeye. And it is
by no means a rash or a hazardous pre-
diction that the crop of the year 1900 will |
be harvested by a machine as much supe-
rior to the present Champion, as the Cham
pion is superior to the old Mccormick.
The march of mechanical progress, so |
far from having come to halt, is still |
pressing the path towards the ideal, and |
that, not with retarded, but, so far as |
now appears with constantly accellerating |
velocity. If we take the successive ratios |
of progress during the four successive |
quarters of the century from 1776 to 1876 |
aud apply that standard to the anticipated |
improvements, inventions and discoveries |
of the next one hundred years, the boldest |
thinker, the widest imagination will |
stagger under the effort to realize the |
agencies, processes, methods and mechan-
ism of the agriculture of 1876. | will not |
refer to the agencies Of steam, electricity,
magnetism, galvanism, and the almost in.
finite adaptabilities of these forms of force
to the ingenious adjustments of machinery.
content myself with pointing you TO the
sun. Or the immense wealth of available |
energy steadily streaming down in daz-
cling splendor from the sun, only COM
paratively small fraction is now intercepted |
and utilized, thus leaving an enormous re-
servoir Of mechanical power to be drawn |
upon by the ingenuity Of the future inven-
tor. OF the amount of this force it is posi- |
BILE to form some idea when we are assured |
by scientific men as fact only learned with |
in the last few years, that the sum of solar
energy thus lavished upon each and every
acre of the earths surface is equivalent to
the steady labor of 1000 horses working
without rest or intermission by day or by |
night After making every deduction for |
the quantity OF this force converted into
atmospheric motion, absorbed as heat, or
employed in the processes of evaporation |
and vegetable growth, there still remains
an unconsumed residuum which is now,
so far as appears, absolutely dissipated and |
wasted, sufficient in amount to drive your
plows, drills, cultivators, reapers and |
threshing machines from one years end to |
the other. All that is needed is the proper |
harness, and who shall say that the same |
inventive genius which has yoked the
lightning may not yet succeed in colaring
the sum-
Nor will the machinist of the future |
allow his attention to be monopolized by |
masculine contrivances. While making |
successful efforts to economize the time |
and save the trouble of the men, some
times iacetiously called the "lords of crea-
tion," he will full very fur short of what is
expected from him if large share of his
ingenuity is not devoted to the convenience
of the ladies. There is, for example, one