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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



case of the horse with its poaching feet, bring about a 

 etate or condition which shall require the implement in 

 some measure to do away with this if it be possible. 

 Everything around us tells us that this new power 

 must be steam. We have bound this power to be our 

 willing slave, with its might that can shatter an oak, 

 yet be controlled by an infant's hand ; and have set it 

 to whirl the wheel, drag the car, and propel the ship ; 

 and shall we, in view of the giant aid it affords us in 

 those things, doubt oi its capacity to till the soil and 

 reap its products ibr us ? 



But in endeavouring to avail ourselves of a 

 new power, it is of the utmost importance that 

 we should consider how, and in what manner, we 

 can most economically make use of it. It by no 

 means follows that we do all, if we simply try to adapt 

 the new power to an old and established implement or 

 system of culture. On the contrary, sound philosophy 

 no less than common business prudence, leads us to 

 consider whether a new implement or a new mode of 

 culture will not probably be required before we can 

 take advantage of the capabilities of a new power. If 

 we look at what has been done in manufacturing 

 machinery — and the best amongst us need fear no 

 shame, or will incur no charge of inefficiency, by taking 

 a lesson from our brother mechanicians who dwell 

 amongst the "cotton men"— we find that this prin- 

 ciple is almost invariably acted upon : new machines 

 with new processes, on the adaptation of a new power. 

 It would be as easy as we hope it is unnecessary 

 to cite numerous exemplifications of the truth of 

 this. There is, indeed, everything to induce our agri- 

 cultural mechanics, on the one hand, to think well as 

 to the best means of availing themselves of the capabili- 

 ties of this new power by the adoption of a new imple- 

 ment ; and our agriculturists, on the other, on the inti'o- 

 duction of a new method of preparing land for the 

 operation of this new implement ; but of this latter 

 consideration more hereafter. There is no such degree 

 of perfection in the work performed by the plough, or 

 such economy in the doing of it, as to induce a belief 

 that our successors will be as much wedded to it as 

 we are ourselves; on the contrary, we have shov a 

 that it possesses defects acknowledged by all; and 

 that these, in place of being overcome, may be 

 aggravated by the application of a steady power like 

 that of steam. If the plough is to be retained with 

 steam as the traction power, those defects must be 

 overcome if we wish to attain economy in the working 

 power as well as efficiency in the work performed. 

 But even granting that with these defects overcome, the 

 work performed shall satisfy the cultural requirements 

 of the question, there are many who think that sound 

 mechanical reasoning inevitably leads to the conclusion, 

 that a machine on a principle distinct in its operation 

 from that of the plough will be required, to satisfy at 

 once mechanical as well as its cultural require- 

 ments. Modifications of its mechanism may make 

 the plough do good work ; it is questionable whether 

 steam-power will enable it to do as cheap work as 

 would be done by steam working an implement 

 expressly designed to aid its peculiarities. There 

 are at all events many reasons for supposing that 

 the plough is not adapted to the new power ; hence 

 before much further outlay is made in the direction of 

 applying the new power to the old implement, it will 

 be as well to consider in all its bearings the important 

 question. In what direction must effijrts be made to 

 avail ourselves of the power of steam for the cultivation 

 of our lands.' Too much stress cannot be laid upon 

 the injunction— common-place enough, doubtless, but 

 too often lost sight of, probably from being so very 

 common-place— that the direction in which we are to 



go must be decided on before any true progress can be 

 made. He would be deemed but a poor navigator 

 who set out from one port to reach another, without 

 providing himself with charts, or information as to the 

 shortest way of reaching his proposed destination. It 

 is not to be wondered at, therefore, that not a few 

 amongst us look upon all plans for steam-ploughing, 

 and for substituting the direct traction of a locomotive 

 for that of the horse, as movements by no means in a 

 philosophical direction, although gladly enough ad- 

 mitting their value as transition plans, tending gradually 

 to an appreciation of the capabilities of the new power ; 

 forcing our train of thought out of the grooves in which 

 it ordinarily runs, and showing to thinking minds what 

 might be done, not so much from what those plans do, 

 as from what they cannot do. 



Leaving then the question as to what the mechanic 

 has to do to bring about the application of steam- 

 power to the culture of land in this transition state, to 

 which the discussions and projects of the last few years 

 have brought it, we proceed to proffer a few remarks 

 on what must, we think, be the duty of the agricultu- 

 rist in aiding the mechanic in his important task. 



If it is true that in certain branches of our manufac- 

 tures the adaptation of a new power necessitates the 

 invention of new machines, it is not the less true that 

 these new machines necessitate on the other hand in- 

 creased care in the preparation of the material on which 

 they have to operate ; hence we find processes of pre- 

 paration as well as realization or finishing. It is, we 

 believe, an axiom in mechanical operations, that to 

 make the application of steam power pay for the outlay 

 and the cost of maintaining it in operation, this 

 operation must be continuous. If the process which 

 it is designed to aid be subjected to a series of annoy- 

 ing stoppages through any internal fault in the con- 

 struction of the machine which carries it on, or through 

 the bad state of the material on which it operates, then 

 a continual drain on the capabilities of the working 

 power is kept up, and much of the advantagesj lost 

 which render it, in cases where it is working under fair 

 circumstances, so superior to manual or animal labour. 

 There must be a mutual adaptation of material and ma- 

 chinery ; the machine must be fitted to work the ma- 

 terial into the final condition which is desiderated, and 

 the material must not present any peculiarities which 

 will prevent the machine giving its best and its quickest 

 work. It is not giving a machine a fair trial to bring 

 it to do work under circumstances presenting obsta- 

 cles which it was never designed to overcome. And yet 

 this is what has been done by many of our farmers. 

 They have asked our mechanists to invent machines ; 

 and when they have been brought out, designed to do 

 work under certain circumstances, they have failed 

 because these circumstances have not existed, and have 

 been blamed for a fault w hich did not originate with their 

 designers. The manufacturer, in asking a mechanic 

 to devise a machine, informs him of the process through 

 which the material is to be put, and the mechanic 

 adapts his mechanism accordingly ; but it is on the 

 understanding that the material is prepared to suit its 

 action ; and this preparation of material is effected by 

 machinery or processes possibly as expensive in their 

 first construction and operation as those destined for 

 the finishing of the article ; and yet he who grudged 

 these processes of preparation would be laughed at; 

 they form part of the manufacture, and can be no more 

 left out than the part of the Dane in the play of 

 " Hamlet." It will be seen then to what conclusion 

 we are evidently drifting. If the mechanic has his 

 part to do in the invention of a machine or implement 

 to till the land under very different circumstances from 

 those existing under the old system, the agriculturist 



