110 SCIENCE WITH PRACTICE, 1845 TO 1873 



reception of tlie seed, and the seed itself is not only better 

 selected and assorted, but it is more effectively sown by 

 drills, wliicli have supplanted the elaborate dii'ections for 

 hand-sowing given by Fitzherbert, and realised the wildest 

 dreams of Worlidge, Evelyn, orTull. Nor is mechanical 

 invention content to improve the preparation, the tillage, 

 and the sowing of the crops. It also supplies means by 

 which they can be secured. Harvesting by hand has given 

 place to mowing, reaping, tedding, and binding machines ; 

 cumbrous wagons have yielded to lighter carts ; elevators 

 have diminislied the labour of stacking ; the flail is sup- 

 planted by threshing and corn-dressing machines, which 

 not only thresh the grain quicker, but leave less in the straw. 

 Lastly, the application of steam to agricultural implements 

 has immeasurably increased their eflBciency, and instead 

 of horse or water power the plough can now be driven, or 

 the corn threshed, by a strength that never tires or slackens. 

 Nor has science confined its efforts to the treatment of 

 arable land. It has done much to improve the manage- 

 ment of grass ; and in no department of agriculture has it 

 achieved more marked results than in stock breeding and 

 feeding. Stalls and yards which fifty years stood empty 

 were filled with fat or store beasts. More stock was 

 bred ; and it is better bred, better fed, and more com- 

 fortably kept ; while the use of oil-cake enabled the farmer 

 to enrich his store of manure, increase his supply of 

 winter keep, and carry more head upon his farm. And 

 here too, machinery economises his labour ; it crushes his 

 corn breaks his cake, chaffs his fodder, pulps or slices his 

 turnips, steams or boils his food. Stall-feeding avoids the 

 waste that is inevitable in yards ; each animal receives an 

 equal portion of food instead of being starved by the 

 strongest, eats at its leisure, ruminates unmolested, and 



