How much of it? The records of the Patent Office show, and the experience
of farmers confirms it, that all the improvements in farm machinery since
1870 have not reduced the labor cost of farm produce on the general
average more than 2-1/2 per cent. Here is a little paradox for you to
study. In the twenty-five years from 1845 to 1870 the progress of
invention in farm machinery was greater than in all the previous history
of the world, marvellously rapid, in fact, and during those years the farm
price of the produce steadily increased; but in the ensuing twenty-five
years to 1895 there were very few improvements, and the price has declined
with steadily increasing speed. This fact is either ignorantly or
skilfully evaded by Edward Atkinson and David A. Wells in their elaborate
articles on the subject; so I will present some facts and figures which
were obtained early this year in the Patent Office, and carefully verified
by members of Congress from every portion of the farming regions.

Since 1795 there have been granted 6,700 patents for plows, but since 1870
there have been but three really valuable improvements. Farmers are
divided in opinion as to whether the riding plow reduces the labor cost.
The lister, recently patented, throws the earth into a ridge and enables
the farmer to plant without previously breaking the soil. It is valuable
in the dry regions of the West, but useless where the rainfall is great,
as the soil must there be broken up anyhow. There have been 920 corn
gatherers patented, of which only one is considered a success, and most
farmers reject it on account of the waste. The general verdict is that the
labor of producing corn has been reduced very little, if any. In the labor
of producing potatoes there has been no reduction whatever, nor in the
finer garden products, nor in fruits. It takes the same labor to produce a
fat hog or a fat ox, a sheep, horse, or mule, as in 1870. In wool growing
many patents have been taken out for shearers, and three of them are said