THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



141 



catering for our luxuries ; bearing; us to distant lands 

 with amazing speed, against wind and wave ; dashing 

 with the fleetness of the race-horse through hill, and 

 along dale ; and bidding fair soon to realize the prophetic 

 boast of the Spirit in the play, of " putting a girdle 

 round the earth in forty minutes." Let us, then, treat 

 innovators with all generosity, and canvass the merits 

 of their innovations with all frankness and fairness. 

 Let us view their proposals in the enlightened spirit of 

 those who wished to draw information and derive know- 

 let!ge from ev>'ry source, treating none with scorn and 

 indifference because it may present at the first blush 

 features which shock our prejudices, or which run 

 counter to our own knowledge, or supposed knowledge, 

 of facts. It is at all times unsafe to judge by appear- 

 ances ; examination may discover features which were 

 unrevealed to hasty ghmces. The lamp in the fairy 

 tale looked doubtless a worthless thing ; but the ma- 

 gician-merchant knew its worth, and invoked its power. 

 The fabled philosopher's- stone clearly was not thought, 

 by those seeking for it, to be a dazzling gem which, by 

 its lustre would attract any eyes, and reveal its work 

 to any finder; it was evidently a thing to be wearily 

 looked for and closely examined. The glass that glitters 

 in the sun-light is but worthless, after all, and poorly 

 repays the labour of him who traverses fields and over- 

 comes obstacles to gain it ; the golden nugget, in its 

 roughened matrix, looks like a lump of molten earth or 

 stone, which may be trodden under-foot or cast aside as 

 worthless. " Examine all things, try all things : hold 

 fast that which is good" — not that which is " old," as 

 some may read it — not that which is " new," as others 

 may translate it; but that which is " good." And this 

 good can only be ascertained by inquiry, by the examina- 

 tion, by the trial which the first part of the text 

 commands. 



These remarks, and the conclusions which may be 

 deduced from them, are not, we conceive, inappropriate, 

 in introducing to the notice of our readers a truly startling 

 innovation in agriculture, the peculiar features of which, 

 and theiradaptability to practice, the agriculturist is called 

 to examine and canvass. We have said that agricul- 

 turists live in the day of innovation ; and in view of the 

 probability — nay, the almost certainty — that innovations 

 will increase, not decrease, in number, it behoves 

 everyone to decide how and in what way those innova- 

 tions shall be received and considered. Too long have 

 agriculturists as a body laboured, and their reputa- 

 tion languished, under the charge, that, as compared 

 with manufacturers and men of commerce, they are 

 slow, and in all things opposed to change, even if that 

 change bring with it improvement. Not here to enter 

 upon the discussion of the question whether this charge 

 be true or not, certain it is that, if agriculturists wish 

 " outsiders" to be of opinion that the charge can be 

 answered in the negative, the discussion of " Innovations 

 on Practice" must be conducted in a different spirit, 

 and lead to more practical results than has been the 

 " use and custom" in times gone by. Far be it from 

 us to ignore the vast strides which agricultural progress 

 has made during the last twenty-five years, or the 

 wondrous aid which our mechanicians have lent to it in 

 carrying out its various processes; neither do we join in 

 the cry (because wholly false we deem it to be) that 

 agriculture stands still, while manufactures and commerce 

 fiouri-h and spread their dominion wondrously ; but what 

 we wish to enforce on the minds of those who think we 

 have arrived at, or at least pretty near to, the promised 

 land of Perfection (not many of which class surely will 

 be among the readers of this journal), that so far are we 

 from this same perfection, that we are simply in a 

 transition state; that we have, in fact, invoked — but 

 not yet possessed ourselves of — that mighty power which 

 lii-schmg^d th? f ice of commerce; and, further, that 



Progress does not mean (what some men evidently do 

 think it docs) that we are to go on, or up to, a certain 

 point, and stop there; that the meaning of the term, if 

 it has any meaning at all, is a going forward — a moving 

 on ; and that consequently it is difficult, if not impossi- 

 ble, for any one to set limits to this progression, and to 

 say " Here it shall go, and no further !" — to change, in 

 fact, the word, and say " Here, up to this point, it 

 shall be progression ; then, stoppage !" 



Not longer to detain our readers, we hasten to explain 

 the peculiarities of that innovation which forms the 

 subject of this paper — an innovation so thorough in its 

 character, and so subversive of established practice and 

 prcconciiived notions, that it may well, as some may 

 deem, be ushered in with those remarks wliioh we have 

 ventured above to address to our readers. La^^t year, at 

 this very time and period, it was our privilege to explain 

 to the readers of this journal another innovation in agri- 

 cultural practice, and to deduce from it the probability 

 that in process of time the farmer would be called upon 

 to join the somewhat incongruous calling or trade of dis- 

 tiller to his own; and that on the ground of his being 

 enabled thus to become a better farmer. Those who will 

 please to turn to the Supplement of the Mark Lane 

 Express of Monday evening, January 9th, 1857, will 

 find, under the title "Agricultural Distilleries," our 

 explanation of the innovation to which we refer. The 

 innovation we have now to notice, in the features which 

 it presents, is evea more startling still, and calculated 

 to give no small shock to time-honoured prejudices. 

 With its introduction ceases the ploughboy's occupa- 

 tion ; and from the plough-tail we take him to the plat- 

 form, and transform him into an engine-driver, working 

 his machine on a veritable railway. Oh 1 shades of our 

 broad-bottomed ancestors 1 what next 1 — and next ? 

 But let us explain : Imagine tlie field to be cultivated, 

 to be laid out with a series of permanent ways, or rails, 

 thus — 



placed at a distance from each other of some thirty or 

 fifty feet. At right angles to those rails {a a), along 

 the headlands separate railways {b b) are placed. 

 Imagine, fuither, two side-frames, each supported 

 by eijiht wheels of small diameter, to run on two 

 contiguous rails; these frames to be connected by a 

 platform stretching over the intermediate space between 

 the rails, and supported by the side-frames. This plat- 

 form, in its turn, supports two steam-engines ; one at 

 each end. These give motion, by means of suitable 

 gearing and connecting rods, to the small wheels 

 on which the side-frames are supported. The two 

 steam-engines are coupled together, so that one 

 end of the platform, or one of the side-frames, 

 shall not progress at a quicker rate than the 

 other; by this means the uniform progression in the 

 same line of motion of the platform along the rails is 

 insured. To the under- side of the platform imagine a 

 series of plough-bodies to be suspended, and to be ad- 

 justed so that, when moved along the space of ground 

 between the rails, thi y shall cut furrow-slices of a de- 

 terminate depth and breadth. Suppose the frame or plat- 

 form, with its suspended ploughs — in number equal to a 

 complete working of the soil the full allowable breadth 



