94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



may be developed by the use of machinery to an extent far 

 beyond the reach of present calculation. 



Other motive powers are earnestly sought after, and the appli- 

 cation of steam to agricultural purposes is a step in the progress 

 of farming, whose results no mind can now foretell; for tliough 

 experiments have as yet met but a limited success, we may 

 remember that such was the progress of many of the grandest 

 inventions of the age. It is probable that, so far as its applica- 

 tion to the immediate cultivation of the soil is concerned, better 

 results will be attained from experiments in substitution of the 

 process of spading than of ploughing, and researches should, it 

 seems to me, be turned into this direction. 



The reaper, the thresher and the mower, are types of the 

 ever restless and progressive spirit of the age. The ultra con- 

 servative may resist them as innovations for a time ; but their 

 language is too powerful and persuasive to be long unheeded. 

 They speak to us of a glorious future, in which they will 

 accomplish for us and for our country, triumphs grander far 

 than the triumphs of arms, for they will develop means of sup- 

 porting the millions of human beings which the implements of 

 war can only destroy. 



We would not fix the bounds to human possibility, or sup- 

 pose for a moment that the ingenuity of man will not devise 

 further means of relieving, to some extent, the amount of toil, 

 both of men and animals, by pressing into the farmers' service 

 some of the giant forces of nature. 



Far back, in ages past, men dug the earth, and sowed the 

 seed, and reaped the grain ; but, while the myriads toiled with- 

 out asjjiration or hope, civilization was confined to the few ; 

 the mechanic arts languished, and the gigantic forces of nature 

 still waited the hand of a master to awaken them into beneficent 

 activity. The river rolled on for more than a century after 

 Christ, without turning a wheel ; the wind swept over the hills 

 of Europe till the eleventh century, without giving motion to a 

 single mill ; the mighty power of steam lay hid for ages, till, at 

 the call of genius, it rose up to alleviate the toils of man, and 

 accomplish the work of a thousand hands by a single wave of 

 its stalwart arm. The thought embodied in machinery, in its 

 turn, excited thought and skill again ; knowledge gradually 

 spread among the masses ; and the masses, to diminish labor 



