478 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



of agricultural implements presented on such occasions, and the 

 diversity of purposes which they are most certainly and effectu 

 ally to accomplish, one is almost persuaded that human labor 

 and superintendence may be dispensed with ; and that the 

 farmer, as he would wind up his clock on Monday morning so 

 that it may run all the week, so he has only to set his agricul 

 tural machinery in motion, and may then leave the field with a 

 quiet confidence that every thing will proceed as he desires it 

 should. After having visited, likewise, the establishments of 

 many large proprietors, and seen the broken and condemned 

 implements, and the piled-up, useless lumber of this description, 

 in their implement-rooms and sheds, I cannot help thinking that 

 there is, among a great many men well informed in other mat 

 ters, a fair share of susceptibility to imposition ; that &quot; razors 

 made to sell &quot; meet with no want of purchasers in England ; 

 and that the manufacturers perfectly understand themselves, 

 when they have got their pail under a full cow. The human 

 tongue is certainly an extraordinary piece of machinery, and its 

 flexibility cannot be sufficiently admired. I see, in the papers of 

 the week when I am writing, an advertisement of a potato- 

 powder, recommended to families to be put into the pot with the 

 potatoes to be boiled, so as to correct the evils of the diseased 

 potato, and not only to neutralize its pernicious influences, but 

 actually to convert the diseased portions into useful nourishment. 

 The price and place of sale are both given. There will be many 

 to buy, beyond all question. When will the reign of empiricism 

 cease on earth ? When the last man has left it ; and not sooner. 



The operation of scarifying will be better understood from a 

 picture of some of the principal instruments in use than from 

 any verbal description. 



The first to which I shall refer is called, after the name of its 

 inventor, 



BIDDELL S SCARIFIER and I shall allow the manufacturer to 

 speak for himself. 



&quot; This implement is for the purpose of cultivating land under a 

 variety of circumstances, and bringing it into a proper state of 

 tilth much more effectually, and at less expense, than can be 

 done by the means generally employed for that purpose. 



