St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1880-01-09
American and English Farm Machin
cry.

American manufacturers of farm
tools shape them in such a way as to
do the work with the least physical la
Dor. The English manufacturer, on
the other hand, has pride in making
everything substantial, heavy and SOL
id, without any regard to the weight or
strength needed. Why, there is more
wood and iron in an English farm-cart
than would make two American carts,
and yet with their superb roads they
load theirs no heavier than we do ours.
An English manure fork is of the same
size and pattern it was half IA century
ago-a square, rough tine, shOuldered
near the pOint-calling for the greatest
amount of force in loading Or unload
ing. The American fork is a round
polished tine, tapering gradually from
the point to the base, and calling for
the least power. The weight of an
English pillow is at least three times
that of ours and its length about twice,
and vet it takes neither wider nor deep
er furrOw-slices than our best plows.
In fact, one pair of horses attached to
one of our best pattern plOws will do
from a third to a half more work in the
same number of hours than an En-
glish farmer with his long, uuwieldy
pattern that is out of all proportion,
both in length and weight, to the work
it is intended for. The same is true of
the English harrOws, cultivatOrs and
all of the implements l found in COM
mon use for turning and cultivating
the soil. The ordinary wooden hand
rake is clumsy, heavy thing, having
from third to half more wood than
is actually necessary. In many in
stances, in going through England, l
have counted eight and ten hands gath
ering hay into winrOws with these
hand rakes, an operation very seldom,
if ever, seen now in the United States.
In many of the agricultural districts
which | visited, farmers cultivating
fl ON forty to a hundred acres of land
still continue to cut their grain crops
with the reaping hook and cradle.
The English cradle has a scythe blade
of ordinary size aud length, with two
short wooden fingers. The man cut
ting with this cradle throws the cut
grain around against the uncut stand
ing grain. Another man follows the
GRADER, equipped with piece of
stick about three feet long with an iron
hook on the end of it, and gathers the
cut grain into sheafs and places them
on the stubble before the next swath
can be cut. The American, or what is
commonly called the yankee" cradle
has wide scythe blade similar in size
and length to the English, but instead
of two short fingers it has four long
ones, and the operator cuts the grain,
which falls on the fingers and which is
thrown into a sheaf on the stubble en-
tirely out of the way of the next
GRADER who follows, leaving the
cut grain ready to be bound,
one man with us doing the work
of two in England. In talking
on the subject with an intelligent far
mer in Essex County, England, had
difficulty in convincing him that the
long fingers of the Yankee" cradle
would not or could not get tangled up
in the straw, nor could induce him to
send and get an American cradle, al
though he was complaining of the high
price of farm labor when compared
with the low price of farm prduce.-P.
r. Quinn in Scribner,