266 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



him the pleasure or profit of circumnavigating the globe clm'- 

 ing a brief business or school vacation. Comparatively, it has 

 stripped matter of weight and immobility by transporting 

 with marvellous velocity and titanic power the most ponder- 

 ous freights by land and sea, — lifting to the surface with the 

 greatest celerity the gross products of the deepest mines, 

 and excelling the mighty force of continental streams in its 

 strength, reliability and adaptation as the propeller of all the 

 varied forms of mechanical and manufacturing machinery. It 

 has deprived the winds, waves and ocean-currents of their 

 power and terror, and bears forth, in the face of all, rich car- 

 goes of life and material, and passes on to its destination 

 from port to port, almost with the certainty and regularity 

 of the advancing day. We are now almost daily called to 

 wonder at the improvement of the steam-engine and its mar- 

 vellous versatility of adaptation. As occasion requires, it per- 

 forms equall}^ w^ell the slowest and the most rapid motion, 

 producing here the most delicate, and there the most gigantic 

 results. On the right hand we behold it without apparent 

 efibrt propelling the monster steamship, or dragging the 

 long train of heavily-loaded cars, and on the left giving mo- 

 tion and eifective power to an apparently inextricable network 

 of the frailest machinery. It controls the morning and the 

 evening editions of the daily press, sending forth its sheets by 

 the hundreds of thousands to supply the wants of a reading 

 nation, and far inland, remote from sea and from water- 

 courses gives motion to every form of machinery, and fills the 

 land with the sounds of prosperous activity. 



But perfect as the steam-engine is, marvellous as are its 

 adaptations in giving power and efficiency to many special 

 forms of human industry, wonderful as are the changes it has 

 wrought in the general condition, the prosperity and happi- 

 ness of mankind, and much as we rejoice at all its accomplish- 

 ments, yet we feel that it has failed, and will continue to fail, 

 to perform the best and most important results of its high 

 mission until its power is fully and directly applied to increase 

 the quantity and cheapen the cost of the products of the soil. 

 This is the very fountain of human want, and the power which 

 creates the imperative supply needs all the aid and reinforce- 

 ment which steam and steam-machinery can give. To adapt 



