s, never
had such numerous and supple fingers as this creature of human
invention. When set a-going, they are clattering and whisking and
frisking everywhere, on the barn-floor, on the hay-loft, in the
granary, under the eaves, down cellar, and all this at the same
time. It is doubtful if any stationary engine in a machine shop
ever performed more diversified operations at once; thus proving
most conclusively how a farmer may work motive power which it was
once thought preposterous in him to think of using. It threshes
wheat and other kinds of grain at the rate of from 400 to 500
bushels a day; it conveys the straw up to a platform across what we
call the "_great beams_," where it is cut into chaff and dropped
into a great bay, at the trifling expense of sixpence, or twelve
cents, per quantity grown on an acre! While it is doing this in one
direction, it is turning machinery in another that cleans and weighs
the grain off into sacks ready for the market. Open the doors right
and left and you find it at work like reason, breaking oil-cake,
grinding corn for the fat stock, turning the grindstone, pitching,
pounding, paring, rubbing, grabbing, and twisting, threshing,
wrestling, chopping, flopping, and hopping, after the manner of "The
Waters of Lodore."

The housings for live stock are most admirably constructed as well
as extensive, and all the great yards are well fitted for making and
delivering manure. I noticed here the best arrangement for feeding
swine that I had ever seen before, and of a very simple character.
Instead of revolving troughs, or those that are to be pulled out
like drawers to be cleaned, a long, stationary one, generally of
iron, extends across the whole breadth of the compartment next to
the feeding passage. The board or picket-fence forming this end of
the enclosure, from eight to twelve feet in length, is hung on a
pivot at each side, playing in an iron ring or socket let into each
of the upright posts that support it. Midway in the lower rail of
this fence is a drop bolt which falls into the floor just behind the
trough. At the feeding time, the man has only to raise this bolt
and let it fall on the inner side, and he has the whole length and
width of the trough free to clear with a broom and to fill with the
feed. Then, raising the bolt, and bringing it back to its first
place, the operation is performed in a minute with the greatest
economy and convenience.

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