426 Report on the Exldbition and Trial of Implements 



solution of a problem so important — a mistake repeatedly illus- 

 trated in the progress of tlie steam-engine — and that to this 

 might be due the indifferent results obtained, economical and 

 otherwise. 



This was, and still is, a view taken chiefly by those who regard 

 the subject rather from an engineering than an agricultural point. 

 It is something, and no small thing, to a farmer to find a new 

 power that can plough as well, and nearly, if not quite, as cheaply, 

 as a team of horses. But to an engineer familiar with the un- 

 rivalled capacity and concentrated action with which the steam- 

 engine has outstripped, almost beyond the scope of serious com- 

 parison, the diffei'ent forms of muscular power — new modelling 

 every process and recasting the very systems it has been sum- 

 moned to the aid of, — the idea of a mere and alnjost doubtful 

 equality of results, presents at once, instead of complacent satis- 

 faction, the suspicion that there must be something fundamentally 

 wrong. Such praise as that contained in the assertion that it 

 " cultivates ahnoi^t if not quite as well and economically as horses 

 can," is to his ears simple condemnation. " Surely there must 

 be some mistake!" is the reply which his Avhole experience of 

 the preceding triumphs of that majestic power, would suggest as 

 his first reflection. Nor is this any mere postulate of science, or 

 conclusion from abstruse reasoning : it is open to the observa- 

 tion of every mind, scientific or otherwise, that can only free 

 itself from the force of hal)it, and analyse the form and action of 

 the implements themselves and their special relation to the power 

 with which they are connected by natural affinity. And this ques- 

 tion, far from having been set at rest by the comparative success 

 attained in steam-ploughing (admitting that to its fullest extent), 

 is rather countenanced by the smallness of the direct gain, if gain 

 it can be called, and the want of simplicity (the test of mechanical 

 as well as all other truth) by which the result obtained is still 

 characterized. 



It was under such impression, and with the view of drawing 

 the attention of manufacturers into a broader field of enquiry 

 than that which had repeatedly ended in unsuccessful experiments 

 with the plough, and still later with the spade, tliat a premium 

 of the unusual amount of 200/., increased afterwards to 500/., was 

 offered, in order to promote the discovery of an instrumentality 

 capable of developing for agriculture an economy, at least ap- 

 proaching if not equalling that which the application of steam 

 power had brought to other mechanical operations. A prize so 

 instituted, and of such amount, was of course altogether out of 

 the category of the ordinary pi-emiums of five, or ten, or twenty 

 ])ounds, anmialli/ arcarded and renewed, for tiie best plough, or 

 drill, or haymaker, or reaper, X)X other implement of tlie year^ 



