206 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



' 'T is gudo to bo off with the old love 

 Before ye be on wi' the new ! ' 



" But no one can imagine, without trying it, the 

 difficulty of making the mechanical part of the ques- 

 tion intelligible to the agriculturist, and the agricul- 

 tural part to the machinist. The steam-engine has 

 no taste whatever for straight draught. lie is a 

 revolutionist, in the most exact sense of the word. 

 He works by revolution: and by revolution only 

 will he cut up the soil into a seed-bed, of the pattern 

 required be it coarse or fine. And that, it is my firm 

 belief, he will be seen doing at a handsome average, 

 before a very large portion of another century shall 

 have passed over. "Why should it not be? Why 

 should not a strip or lair of earth be cut up into fine 

 soil at one operation (and sown and harrowed in, 

 too,) as easy as a circular-saw cuts a plank into saw- 

 dust? But when you come to employing 



a Steam-engine 



to turn a Drum, 



to wind a Rope, 



to drag a Plow, 



to turn up a Furrow, 



and all this as a mere prelude for an after-amuse- 

 ment to all the ancient tribe of harrows, scufflers, 

 rollers, and clod-crushers, to do supplementally the 



