THE USE OF STEAM ON THE FARM. 273 



too hopeful and credulous when I say that the want is so great, 

 the day cannot be far distant when means will l)e devised by 

 which a large proportion of the heavy work on our farms now 

 performed by men and horses will be performed by steam. 

 The first step to be taken, as preliminary to extended farm- 

 improvement in America, is thorough drainage. Millions of 

 acres, now about worthless, would, by the process, be con- 

 verted into the most productive and valuable land were it not 

 for the hard labor and great cost of opening and closing the 

 drains. To overcome this we demand a ditchino:-machine 

 propelled by steam-power. 



The demands of more thorough tillage, the breaking up and 

 pulverizing of the subsoil on our hardpan farms, especially on 

 the introduction of the sugar-beet culture, requires the intro- 

 duction of its efficient and powerful force. We need steam 

 for a large proportion of the heavy hauling of the farm, — to 

 transport manures, sand, clay, muck, the crops ; and when 

 once applied to this, to be so adjusted as to perform or relieve 

 much of its manual labor. Our farm-machinery of all kinds 

 should be propelled by steam ; and the same apparatus should 

 perform the work alluded to at the barn, as well as preparing 

 food for stock. One apparent cause of the failure of our me- 

 chanics and inventors to supply these wants hitherto, has been 

 that they have attempted too much, and have failed to 

 secure anything. A machine like that of Waters, thirty- 

 seven feet in length, weighing ten tons, costing six thousand 

 dollars, and ploughing sixty acres per day, even if it accom- 

 plished what was claimed for it, was not the kind of machine 

 demanded by American agriculture ; and all other engines 

 possessing similar characteristics will fail to be generally in- 

 troduced and useful. Another cause of the failure of Ameri- 

 can machines has undoubtedly been that their inventors have 

 not found a practical method of securing a sufficient traction 

 to propel them and at the same time to haul a load. All such 

 sorts of contrivances attached to the wheels as clogs, hooks, 

 prongs, blades, &c. , have not succeeded, and when great weight 

 has been given to the whole apparatus to give it a hold upon the 

 ground, it has accomplished little else than to make it immov- 

 able. The steam-engine which will meet the present or future 

 wants of our agriculture must be locomotive, moving itself 



35 



