236 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



the Harrow were still in the ascendant ; the instru- 

 ments of equine tillage were still received as its 

 essential agents ; and people who would have smiled 

 at the mechanical curiosity of a steam-^7^7, gravely 

 anticipated the day when some such combination 

 would be achieved for the darling tool whose 

 Heaven-invoked ' speed ' had long supplied the toast 

 and figure-head of agricultural prosperity. 



" Yet it can hardly be wondered at," our aggra- 

 vating Critic will continue, " that men should have 

 slowly and with such difficulty eradicated from 

 their minds a mode of tillage so long compelled by 

 the very nature and necessity of animal-power: 

 every child that has wept and smiled over the 

 'Death of Cock-Robin,' knows, when he hears 



" Who '11 toll the bell ? 



' 1,' says the Bull, 



' Because I can pull,' " 



that Mr. Bull was guilty of a pun ; that the 'pull' 

 of a quadruped is only horizontal; that his strength 

 can be applied in no other way ; and that when you 

 have no choice left but horizontal traction, from 

 one end of the field to the other ; a mode of action 

 which commenced when the spade was abandoned 

 in field-culture for the plow, and which was to 

 continue so long as horse-power tillage continued : 



