THE STEAM-ENGINE IN AGRICULTURE A^D HORTICULTURE. 



THE STEAM -ENGINE IN AGRICULTURE AND 

 HORTICULTURE. 



A PERIOD has just p:one by us, in which what is called "famine prices" have been 

 paid ))}' the rich and the poor; our 2:roat cities have actual!}' suffered from want; 

 at one time, it was difficult to procure, for a larj^e sum, a bushel of potatoes in 

 the p:reat city of Philadeliihia, and we can testify it was eminently so in its out- 

 skirts. AVHiy is this ? Are so many people getting rich and lazy ? Very proba- 

 bly I Have we so many non-producers ? Yes ! But may we not look to other 

 causes also ? Is not irrigation a neglected source of wealth ? and, if so, what is 

 the process by which we are to arrive at a remedy. We answer, without hesitation, 

 the steam-engine must now step in and relieve us from our incubus. Just as we 

 were pondering on this subject, we saw an advertisement in the Ilorticulliirist of 

 Harlan and Ilollingsworth, of Wilmington, Delaware, of the very thing wanted, and 

 then came another advertisement from Zanesville, Ohio, and a short letter from a 

 gentleman who seems to have studied the subject, which contains so much good sense 

 respecting the use of steam in agriculture and horticulture, that we adopt it. Steam 

 has long wafted us on river and ocean, but it has but lately found its way to the 

 farm, on wheels. Honor be to the man who thus mounted it, and sent it round, 

 like a good physician, to visit its patients and 



" Cure tlieir ills 

 With constant rills." 



Our correspondent shall tell the uses o^ a pedestrian steam-engine. 



"The point is nearly reached, in the wonderful development of our country, 

 when steam must be called in requisition to do very much labor heretofore done 

 by human muscles, cattle, and horses, and to do much more, which their instru- 

 mentalities have never undertaken, but which the point reached in our progress 

 renders necessary. In this, the horticulturist, wdiether commercial or amateur, as 

 well as the agriculturist, has a deep interest. 



" I will, in a suggestive way, point out a few of the various ends which steam 

 must be called upon to subserve. 



" The nearly steady annual decrease of rain during the summer and fall months, 

 is, I believe, an admitted fact, and the train of consequences following these pro- 

 tracted droughts are beginning to attract serious attention, as the supposed causes 

 are steadily going forward, with an increase proportionate to the increasing density 

 of population. Tlie fact is, that the water retires into deep, subterranean caverns, 

 and artificial aid must be called into requisition to remedy this, as far as may be, and 

 to elevate it again to the surface, where it will partially compensate for the long 

 withheld showers of rain. This the steam-engine must do in the great majority 

 of cases, if done at all. Cities and villages have artificial supplies of water, and 

 why not the florist, horticulturist, and farmer ? 



" Again, the professional florist needs artificial heat during our protracted 

 winters. Farmers, owing to the advanced price of grain and stock, will find it 

 to their interest to substitute steam for many purposes, where admissible, for 

 human, horse, and cattle labor, in threshing, cutting, crushing, and cooking feed, 

 wood, &c. Having thus glanced at the utility, economy, as well as the necessity 

 for the employment of steam in the more common affairs of life, the next inquiry 

 will naturally be, has the steam-engine been simplified and cheapened, so as to 

 fit and qualify it for these new uses ? The answer is, that it has, to a very 

 extent, at least — sufficiently to answer present requisitions. 



