Aggricultural and Pastoral.

Otago Witness, Issue 802, 13 April 1867, Page 8

Aggricultural and Pastoral.

FARM IMPLEMENTS.

The journal of the New York State Agricultural Society, for November, 1866, has the following remarks upon the improvements made sines 1851, in agricultural implements:— ln 1851, M'Cormiok, fresh from the field trial at Tiptree, Enjj-!and,-and the triump*h of the great exhibition in London, showed his world- renowed reaper. Hussy was also there, and one or two others. Look at the number and excellence of the mowers and reapers at one of our fairs. A contrivance for unloading hay by horse-power was figured about this time in the agricultural journals, but hid not as yet been manufactured or exhibited. Now we have a dozen different unloading forks, simple and efficient; and tens of thousands are in use. There have too, been great imorovements in steel- toothed horse-rakes. For stubble-raking, and for going, over the hay fields after the cocks have been removed, they are indispensable ; but for putting the hay into win rows, the wooden revolving hay rake still holds its own. It is a marvel of simplicity — one of the mbst useful inventions of modern agriculture. In everything that relates to the harvesting of our crops, there has been a marked advance since 1851. Reapers, with self- rakes ; mower 3 that leave nothing to be desired ; tedders that shake out the hay with great rapidity ; hay-caps to protect it from the weather ; a loading apparatus that gives promises of success; unloading forks; and, best of all, a grain binder. Such are some of the results of fifteen short years. Inventors and manufacturers have received the fullest appreciation and reward. The heavy labour of of harvest is a thing of the past. A new agricultural era has begun in which mind rather than muscle is demanded, both in the farmer and laborer. Prejudice, to a great extent, has been swept away, and it is cheering to hear the remark, when speaking of a new invention — " It is not yet perfect, but it does the work as well as the mowing machines did when first introduced." We heard this remark madf. a few days since in reference to a potatodigger. It is a hopeful sign, and gives promise that ignorance and prejudice are melting away. In the implements and machines for preparing the land and for putting in the seed there has been considerable improvement, though not to that extent witnessed in those designed for gathering in the clops. Grain drills have been brought to great perfection, and are now found on all well conducted farms. Broad-cast plaster and artifisial manure sowers have been introduced. Corn and been planters are more general, and though a machine for dropping the corn in hills at regular distances, so that the crop can be cultivated both ways, has not yet been brought to perfection, yet we have them for drilling or dropping the corn in the rows that do the work with great rapidity ; and if properly guided, the rows can be made so straight, and the cultivator

can be run so close to the growing plant, that the labor of hoeing is little, if any, more than when the corn is planted in hills by the hand, although the cultivator is run both ways. At all events, when the land is rich and well prepared and thoroughly cultivated, the extra crop obtained from drilled corn, or better still, from corn dropped in the rows about eighteen inches apart and three or four in a place, will much more than compensate for all the extra hoeing. We have machines that will do this work most admirably. In horse hoes for cultivating corn, potatoes, and other hoed crops, what great advance has been made since 1851 ! We still see an occasional dirty corn crop, but this not the fault of the manufacturers. We have cultivators which, in our splendid climate for killing weeds, woul 1 soon make the land as clean and mellow as a garden ; and it is a gratifying fact that the majorityj ority of our farmers now cultivate their corn far more thoroughly than they did a dozen or fifteen years ago. There is still, however, room for great improvement in this respect ; and there is also room for improvement in the shape of our cultivator teeth. The teeth that run next to the row are too large ; and if we run as close to the corn as is de - arable, they throw too much soil on the young plants. The outside teeth should be strait, so that we could see exactly when they cut the ground, and they should be so constructed as to disturb the soil n mote than is necessary to kill the weed We knowa of no cultivator that fully meet these requirements.

The "New Zealand Advertiser" siys — " The public will be glai to hear that Sir G. A. Arney, the Chief Justice of New Zealand, is ecj'iyiug good health in England. Writing to a rriend he says : — f The weather here has been very severe. I found the cold all the better for me ; I grew daily stronger ; after a few hours' skat'ng I was able t > cut my outer edge, in figure of 8, almost as neatly as twenty years ago.' Sir George may be expected to return to Auckland ia June, 1B68."