FOOD- PREPARING MACHINERY.
It is possibly (says the English Live Stock Journal) within, the memory of some farmers who still are strong enough and active enough to visit our cattle shows that every suggestion as to an alteration in the preparation of food for live stock and horses were met by a shake -of the head and the remark that they preferred to 'stick to the good old ways of their forefathers.' No class o£ -men are more conservative of old customs than agriculturists, and it takes a long time for one to push them out of their stride. If you ask the pioneers of' agricultural machinery — the Claytons, the Avelings, the Howards, the Ransomes, or the Fowlers — they will tell you how easily they could see how thoir inventions would benefit farmers generally, and forsee the use of their machines, im proved or unimproved, in the far-dis tant future, but how difficult , they found the old school to catch their ideas up. The iron plough fought its ■way against -the wooden 5 the thresher fought its way against the flail ; • the winnower against the dry -hard bree2e and the open barn doors ; and the reap ing machine against the .'hook and the scythe. Yet all are in use now in every farm and homestead in Great Britain. Some firms went down before the day when success thought fit to smile upon them, and some have thriven and prospered. That, riches have been their reward is but just, and it is anything but fair for some to say — as some -have;said— that when these men, in the day of their leisure, gave their -time, .and attention in Parliament to agricultural reform, that they are actuated. in; all 'their "motives by selfish.
