When our American reapers first challenged attention in Great Britain, the general skepticism as to their efficiency was counteracted by the suggestion that, even though reaping by machinery should prove more expensive than reaping by hand, the ability to cut and save the grain-crop more rapidly than hitherto would over-balance that enhancement of cost. In the British Isles, day after day of chilling wind and rain is often encountered in harvest-time: the standing Wheat or Oats or Barley becoming draggled, or lodged, or beaten out, while the owner impatiently awaits the recurrence of sunny days. When these at length arrive, he is anxious to harvest many acres at once, since his Grain is wasting and he knows not how soon cloud and tempest may again be his portion. But all his neighbors are in like predicament with himself, and all equally intent on hurrying the harvest; so that little extra help is attainable. If now the aid of a machine may be commanded, which will cut 15 or 20 acres per day, he cares less how much that work will cost than how soon it can be effected. Hence, even though cutting by horse-power had proved more costly than cutting by hand, it would still have been welcome. So it is with Plowing, here and almost everywhere. Our farmers have this year been unable to begin Plowing for Winter Grain so early as they desired, by reason of the intense heat and drouth, whereby their fields were baked to the consistency of half-burned brick. Much seed will in consequence have been sown too late, while much seeding will have been precluded altogether, by inability to prepare the ground in due season. If a machine had been at hand whereby 15 or 20 acres per day could have been plowed and harrowed, thousands would have invoked its aid to enable them to sow their Grain in tolerable season, even though the cost had been essentially heavier than that of old-fashioned plowing. I traversed Illinois on the 13th and 14th of May, 1859, when its entire soil seemed soaked and sodden with incessant rains, which had not yet ceased pouring. Inevitably, there had been little or no plowing yet for the vast Corn-crop of that State; yet barely two weeks would intervene before the close of the proper season for Corn-planting. Even if these should be wholly favorable, the plowing could not be effected in season, and much ground must be planted too late or not planted at all. In every such case, a machine that would plow six or eight furrows as fast as a man ought to walk, would add immensely to the year's harvest, and be hailed as a general blessing.