Year: 1879

In paper in Scribner for November
on "The Agricultural Distress of Great
Britain" Mr.. p T. Quinn gives the re-
suit of personal comparison of English
and American farm tools as follows:


American manufacturers of farm
tools shape them in such way as to do
the work with the least physical labor.
The English manufacturer, on the other
hand, has pride in making everything
substantial, heavy and solid, 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 pat
tern it was half a century ago-a square,
rough tine shOuldered near the point
calling for the greatest amount of force
in loading or unloading. The American
fork is round polished tine, tapering
gradually from the point to the base,
and calling for the least power. The
weight of an English plow is at least
three times that of ours and its length
about twice, and yet it takes neither
wider nor deeper 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 English farmer with his long, I'M
wieldly pattern that is out of all proper
tiOn, 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
common use for turning or 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, 1
have counted eight and ten hands gath
ering hay into windrOWS with these
hand-rakes, an operation very seldom, if
ever, seen now in the United States. In
many of the agricultural districts which
l visited, farmers cultivating from forty
to 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 and
length, with two short wooden fingers.
The man cutting with this cradle throws
the cut grain around against the uncut
standing grain. Another man follows
the GRADER, equipped with piece of
stick about three feet in length 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 in
stead of two short fingers it has four
long ones, and the operator cuts the
gram, which falls on the fingers and
which is thrown into sheaf on the
stubble entirely out of the way of the
next GRADER who follows, leaving the
cut grain ready to be bound, one man


with rs doing the work of two in Eng


land. In talking on the subject with an


intelligent farmer in Essex county, Eng
land, 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 produce.