On Acjincultw^al Mechanics. 101 



I. Implements used in tilling the land and in tlie cultivation 

 of crops. 



II. Implements used in harvesting the crops. 



III. Implements used in preparing the crop for market. 



I V. Implements used in preparing the crops for food for the 

 Stock on the farm. 



I. The first class of implements, according to this division, are 

 those employed in bringing the land into a fit state for the re- 

 ception of the seed, and in keeping it in a proper state of cul- 

 tivation during the growth of the plant ; and the first to be 

 described under this head are the implements used in freeing land 

 from superabundant water, the various descriptions of draining- 

 plough, and the subsoil-plough, their valuable auxiliary. Then 

 having by the use of these implements got our land into such a 

 state that the other implements of tillage may be used with ad- 

 vantage, we shall come to speak of the plough, the harrow, the 

 roller, and the various forms of the grubber or cultivator, with the 

 valuable implements of drill-husbandry allied to them — ^the horse- 

 hoe and the drill- harrow. Then we shall speak of the various 

 forms of sowing-machines, whether for scattering the seed broad- 

 cast or sowing them in drills ; and lastly, as connected with every 

 stage of cultivation, the cart and the waggon. 



1 . Implements of Drainage. 



In tracing the history of thorough drainage we do not require 

 to go very far back. The practice is^ in fact, still in its infancy ; 

 certainly, however, no branch of agricultural practice has, in so 

 short a time, effected such strikingly beneficial results as the 

 frequent drain- system. 



Drainage was in former times restricted to directing the water 

 of springs into proper channels, and hindering them from form- 

 ing marshes. In this, great improvement was effected by Mr. 

 Elkington, of Warwickshire, who did not merely apply himself 

 to the confining and conveying away of the water alter it had 

 reached the surface, but, by means of boring-tools, probed the 

 ground to the source of the spring, and took the water altogether 

 out of its former course, directing into one channel what had 

 formerly, by springs, overspread a considerable extent. 



The removal of the water of springs, which used to stagnate on 

 the soil, was a great good effected, but it was not generally known 

 till Mr. Smith, of Deanston, pointed out the fact that, of the land 

 injured by stagnant water, the great portion is v/etted, not by 

 water springing from the land, but by water falling and retained 

 on the surface. The full acknowledgment of this fact will, of 

 course, be followed by the application of the only remedy — that 



