THE PLAIN "ENGLISH" OF IT. 205 



done by steam, that were no doubt the most obvious 

 way, and as good a way as any. But I hold it 

 (under favor) to be an idea fundamentally erroneous 

 to attempt to combine steam-machinery with the 

 plow. And I hope I am not presumptuous in record- 

 ing my conviction that until the idea of the Plow, 

 and in a word, of all -Dra^A^-cultivation is utterly 

 abandoned, no effective progress will be made in 

 the application of Steam to the tilling of the earth. 

 I repeat what I have said before, that ' plowing ' is 

 a mere contrivance for applying animal power to 

 tillage: Get out of animal-power, and you leave 

 ' plowing ' behind altogether. Get into steam-power 

 and you have no more to do with the plow, than a 

 Horse has to do with a spade. It is no essential 

 whatever of cultivation that it should be done by 

 the traction of the implement. Spade-work is per- 

 pendicular. Horse-work is horizontal. Machine- 

 work is circular. 



"Who would now dream of retaining the form of 

 the hand-flail in the Thrashing-machine, or that of 

 the oar in a steam-ship, or of putting the piston-rod 

 to work at the lever-end of a pump-handle? Yet 

 doubtless these piebald attempts were all made in 

 their day, till the several inventors had come to see 

 in turn that 



