284: WHAT I KNOW OF FABMING. 



wheat next year. The wheat was drilled four days 

 back." 



N"ow I am not commending Steam as the best 

 source of power in aid of Agriculture. I hope we 

 shall be able to do better ere long. I recognize the 

 enormous waste involved in the movement of an 

 engine, boiler, etc., weighing several tons, back and 

 forth across our fields, and apprehend that it must be 

 difficult to avoid a compression of the soil therefrom. 

 A stationary engine and boiler at either end of the field, 

 hauling a gang of plows this way and that by means 

 of ropes and pulleys, must involve a very heavy out- 

 lay for machinery and a considerable cost in its re- 

 moval from farm to farm, or even from field to field. 

 Either of these may be the best device yet perfected ; 

 but we are bound to do better in time. 



Precisely how and when the winds which sweep 

 over our fields shall be employed to pulverize and 

 till the soil, are among the many things I do not 

 know ; but, that the end will yet be achieved, I un- 

 doubtingly trust. I know somewhat not much of 

 what has been done and is doing, both in Europe 

 and America, to extend and diversify the utilization 

 of wind as a source of power,' and to compress and 

 retain it so that the gale which sweeps over a farm 

 to-night may afford a reserve or fund of power for 

 its cultivation on the morrow or thereafter. I know 

 a little of what has been devised and done toward 

 converting and transmitting, through the medium 

 of compressed air, the power generated by a water- 



