230 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



I have found it inexpressibly difficult to get th : 

 leading postulate clearly and once for all understood 

 Till it is so, it is hopeless to attempt to proceed. 

 The idea of an instrument to be dragged through 

 the soil, as the plow is, from one end of the field to 

 another, poisons, more or less, not every, but nearly 

 every effort toward steam cultivation I have seen. 

 How difficult it is to tmlearn ! 



"When the attempt was first made to run steam- 

 carriages on common roads, it was soon found that 

 however good a macadamized surface might be for 

 a wheel to roll upon, under a carriage drawn by 

 horses, it broke away into a perfect gravel-bed, when 

 the new power, instead of pulling the carriage, which 

 set the wheels simply rolling underneath, laid hold 

 of the wheel itself, and produced the locomotion of 

 the vehicle by forcibly driving the wheels round. 

 The very best road gave way under the severe fric- 

 tion of this new mode of producing locomotion, and 

 so did the tires : and nothing could be done till both 

 road and wheel were made of solid iron. The new 

 power required a new process. Instead of pulling 

 the carriage it drove the wheel, and in driving the 

 wheel it tore up the stones even of a granite road. 



Let ns put on our agricultural spectacles, and 

 apply this parable. When Steam-power is brought 



