272 BOAED OF AGRICULTUKE. 



from eight to fifteen acres per day ; that on average land it 

 will plough at a cost less than a dollar per acre, and its qual- 

 ity of work and influence on the crop are equal to Fowler's 

 machine, and like that, it is a good stationary-engine to be 

 used for lifting, threshing, sowing, &c. The net cash price of 

 this engine, with the gang of ploughs, is $5,500 in New York. 

 Its weight, with coal, water and attendants on board, is more 

 than six tons, and it is very doubtful whether it has been so 

 severely tested as to prove that its great weight and compli- 

 cation will not seriously impair its usefulness even on large 

 farms, common roads and ordinary friable soils. Admitting 

 now that these two patents, Fowler's and Williamson's (the 

 only ones out of hundreds that have been granted) , are a suc- 

 cess, and that they will accomplish all their inventors and 

 manufacturers claim, it seems that they must utterly fail to meet 

 our present want of steam-tillage. Their great cost, cumber- 

 some proportions and complicated tackle, prohibit their gen- 

 eral use, except on immense estates where there are hundreds 

 or thousands of acres to be tilled, where the surface is but 

 gently undulating and the soil firm or hard. The owners of 

 the royal domains of the old world, and of some of the prairie- 

 farms and sugar-plantations of our country, may have capital 

 to invest and find it profitable to employ such means of culti- 

 vation ; but the vast majority of our estates embrace only 

 scores instead of hundreds or thousands of acres. The policy 

 of our government, the genius of our people and institutions, 

 all have a tendency to make a large proportion of our popula- 

 tion land-owners, and it is morally certain that as it becomes 

 more dense, there will be a tendency to diminish rather than 

 increase the present size of farms, until we shall be, compara- 

 tively speaking, a nation of small farmers. It therefore seems 

 certain, that such expensive, unwieldy machines cannot be 

 useful to our future agriculture, and especially when we take 

 into account the rocky nature of a large proportion of our 

 soils and their uneven surfaces. Whatever may be the fact 

 in relation to the present or future size of American farms, we 

 shall need a better and cheaper power to secure for them such 

 cultivation as the advancing age demands. It is an estab- 

 lished fact that for all the ordinary purposes of transportation 

 steam costs much less than horse-power, and I trust I am not 



