220 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICUIffURE. 



requirements of the day. Under the new demand for mechanical aids, more 

 than one ingenious blacksmith or wheelwright rose from a humble position, 

 and has since expanded his small furge into a factory where steam-power and 

 the best artisans are employed in the construction of agricultural implements. 

 Experience has convinced most persons that the use of agricultural machinery 

 creates an increased demand for labor of a superior kind. The true effect of 

 the iron workman is not to displace the human, but to perfect cultivation, to 

 multiply produce, to increase the means of subsistence, and to add to the 

 prosperity of the entire community. 



It may be taken for an axiom, that when a farmer has used even one good 

 implement, he derives so much advantage from its rapid and accurate work, 

 that he returns again and again to the manuHicturer's yard, until he has, aa 

 far as possible, substituted horse for human power, and steam for horse power. 



* * * # Nothing illustrates better the change which has come over 

 farming in the last few years, than what has taken place witli respect to so 

 ancient and familiar an article of husbandry a? the plow. Although an im- 

 plement more than two thousand years old, it is only within the last tixteen 

 years that it has been reduced to an uniform shape and material. In engrav- 

 ings, to the eye of the casual observer, there is now no difference between the 

 plows manufactured for the same purpose hy everyone of the eminent makers ; 

 and, in fact, in general construction, they are all alike, except where the 

 •' turnwrests of Kent and Sussex" are used, although some have a marked 

 superiority in the details and in durability. They are fashioned entirely of 

 iron and steel, of long graceful wave-like form, provided with a pair of wheels 

 of unequal size, and drawn by a chain attached to the l)ody of the plow. Iron 

 screws and levers have replaced wooden wedges. A few seconds are sufficient 

 to attach the share or adjust the coulter. It was quite otherwise in 18-10, 

 Out of six plows engraved in the Journal of Agriculture for that year, two 

 are swing, two have two wheels, two have one wheel each, all are of wood, 

 except the shares and breasts, all are drawn from the extremity of the beam, 

 and the awkward inferiority of their respective shapes is perceptible at a 

 glance. In 1840, Lincoln, Rutland, Bedfordshird, Berks, and almost every 

 other county, had its separate plow, and knew little of its form in the rest of 

 the kingdom ; the exceptions being among the customers of the sci'mtific 

 makers, whose trade was restrained by the cost of conveyance, the want of 

 publicity, and the want of intelligence. The improvement since then is as 

 great as the change from the old musket to the Minie rifle. Skilful manufac- 

 turers, each eager to command the market, study, with all the aids of mechan- 

 ical knowledge and a wide experience, to secure excellence of design, durability 

 of make, and economy of price, while the former in his turn has learnt that 

 science is a better constructor than ignorance, and no longer prefers the (ilumsy 

 efforts of a village artisan. The marvel is in the rapidity with which these 

 changes have been effected, as of some magician of agriculture had waved his 

 wand over our favored island. # * # # 



The pecuniary gains of agricultural progress are not to be estimated by the 

 mere saving in wages, horse labor, seed or manure. Thorough draining not 

 only diminishes the cost of plowing, but it renders it possible to grow great 

 crops of roots — of mangold-wurzel from thirty to thirty-five tons an acre, and 

 of turnips from twenty to twenty- five tons. Ten times more live stock is thus 

 fed on the land than it maintained before. The corn crop follows the roots in 

 due course without further manuring, and is made certain in addition, even in 

 wet seasons. The well-shaped modern plow saves in horse labor, as compared 

 with the clumsy, old-fashioned swing plow, a sum which can only be calcu- 

 lated in reference to the tenacity of each kind of soil, but which on an average 

 exceeds the power of one horse, besides enabling youths, skilful but not strong, 

 to act as plowmen, encouraging deep plowing, the foundation on tiie host land 

 of good root crops. The advantage of the drill over broadcasting is not only 

 in the smaller quantity of seed and manure required, or in the power to sow 



