The Scientific Agriculture of the Period. 297 



the clumsy metliods then in use by means of hand-flails. A 

 range of flails fixed on one side of the threshing-floor, worked 

 by machinery from behind, and kept in motion by a horse as 

 in a mill, with space enough in front for men to move about 

 and lay the corn under the flails with forks, would be the 

 direction in which the inventor should exert his skill. A 

 machine for digging earth and throwing it into carts was a 

 suggestion which contained in embryo the modern appliance 

 known as " the steam navvy." The author's idea was one that 

 should rest on four small wheels, for the convenience of moving. 

 The fall of a beam like that used in oil mills might be utilised 

 so as to strike into the earth a very large spade ; " the first 

 motion to cut the shape of the piece to be raised ; the second, 

 to fix the spade to it ; the third, to raise it a little above the 

 cart ; and the fourth, to strike it in. Thus in the space of a 

 minute four or five repetitions would load a cart of the ordinary 

 size, and greatly expedite the labour required in marling, clay- 

 ing, or otherwise manuring large tracts of land." ^ 



Let us examine more in detail than we were able to do in a 

 former chapter how far the implement-makers of the period 

 responded to this call for assistance by the husbandman of a 

 hundred years ago. In a wonderfully complete treatise for the 

 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Socieffj of 1892,^ Mr. Pidgeon 

 has told the story of the Evolution of Agricultural Implements. 

 About the middle of the seventeenth century Walter Blith had 

 described a double-furrow plough, and nearly one hundred 

 years later Ellis, of Hoddesdon, had perfected Blith's ideas by 

 inventing a similar implement, which met with the entire satis- 

 faction of Arthur Young, and which was rendered still more 

 effectual by the designs of Lord Somerville and the plough- 

 wright, Handford, early in the present century. The Earl of 

 Stair introduced the Dutch plough in 1730, which was almost 

 immediately improved by Stanyforth and Foljambe, and be- 

 came known as the " Rotherham plough" — the same alluded 



^ Political Essays, sub voc. " Agriculture." A. Young. London, 1772. 



^ The Evolution of Agricultural Implements. By Dan. Pidgeon, Assoc. 

 List. C.E. Journal of the R.A.S.E.^ 3rd series, vol. iii. parts i. and ii., 

 1892. 



