196 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



labor is in fact most powerful in perpendicular 

 action. 



"But when the man gives up the spade, the hoe, 

 or the flail, and employs his horse to cultivate or 

 thrash for him, a new application of power becomes 

 necessary. The back-bone of the quadruped is hor- 

 izontal^ not perpendicular, to the ground : and the 

 adaptation of the power must be accordingly. The 

 horse cannot lift and press the implement of culti- 

 vation, but he can draw it along ; so the spade and 

 the hoe are turned into tools of draught, and are 

 drawn through the soil, raisiug it with the spiral 

 wedge-like action of the plow, very damaging to the 

 subsoil upon which the whole stress and hardening 

 pressure come, but cheap and expeditious compared 

 with the spade, so far as regards the mere inversion, 

 or partial inversion, of the soil ; though doing little 

 toward its cultivation. Again, in thrashing, the 

 application of the horse's power must still be hori- 

 zontal, like his figure, and his work be done by 

 lateral pulling. The direction of animal power, in 

 fact, is horizontal: and horizontal draught is the 

 only form in which it can be applied.* 



"But draught is not necessary to cultivation, nor 



* Except in tho case of a turnspit dog, or a squirrel in a 

 cage, where it is applied to generate circular motion. 



