378 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



In whatever aspect we regard the solar emanation, it pre- 

 sents itself to us dynamically as a spring of power. Which- 

 ever way we turn, we find all is motion, activity, demonstra- 

 tion of force. The atmosphere surges in S' orms and hurri- 

 canes ; streams thunder over precipices ; steam urges on the 

 dilatory ship, or impels the factory ; electricity carries intelli- 

 gence to the world's ends ; the animal world is everywhere 

 in motion, cleaving the air, dividing the waters, burrowing 

 in the earth, traversing the land, and putting forth power in 

 countless forms. Yet the placid and tranquil sunbeam does 

 the work. It is the great dynamical energy of the world. 

 It may be interesting to consider how much working-force a 

 farmer derives from the sun through the medium of foods. 

 From the most careful computations, based upon the known 

 mechanical equivalent of heat as connected with the difierent 

 forms of food, it may be stated that a working-man on the 

 farm produces in twenty-four hours an amount of heating or 

 thermal effect equal to raising fourteen million pounds to the 

 height of one foot. He is not, however, capable of produc- 

 ing in actual work on the farm mechanical effects of that 

 magnitude. A healthy farmer, in the busy season of summer, 

 is capable of exerting every day, in his work, mechanical re- 

 sults equal to raising three million six hundred thousand 

 pounds to the height of one foot. This statement seems as- 

 tounding ; but it is based upon scientific data which is approx- 

 imatively correct. Follow the man in the haying-season, 

 and consider the constant expenditure of force in walking, 

 mowing, pitching, raking, and even in breathing and eating. 

 Two or three tons of hay pitched from the ground, through 

 a distance of eight or ten feet, to the top of a load, requires 

 a mechanical force, which, when accurately computed, is 

 found to be great. The wide range between the heat-energy 

 which a working-man produces and that which he is capable 

 of utilizing in labor, may seem surprisingly large ; but we 

 must remember that throughout nature there is a prodigality 

 of force manifested, and it is apparently impossible to cause 

 the whole which is developed in any one form to be made 

 subservient to the uses of man. We burn coal and wood 

 for household warmth and for mechanical purposes, in devices 

 or under circumstances the best which ingenuity can invent ; 



