HISTORICAT NOTICES OF AGRICULTURE 17 



The bringing of mechanical ingenuity and the 

 combinations of science to bear upon the construc- 

 tion of agricultural implements; had an excellent 

 eftect on the cause of cultivation. Iron had, indeed, 

 been substituted for wood in the making of such im- 

 plements, but few improvements in their construc- 

 tion, over the simple forms of antiquity, had been 

 attempted. AU imiovation was met at the threshold 

 by the dogged obstinacy of the labourer, whose at- 

 tachment to old methods could with difficulty be 

 shaken ; and it was long before such indispensable 

 things as the fanning-mill and the threshing-ma- 

 chine, now so common everywhere, could be freely 

 permitted in England. All machines termed labour- 

 saving have been, from the first, looked upon with 

 suspicion in that country ; and drills, horse-rakes, 

 threshing-machines, &c., &c., have been repeatedly 

 denounced, and not unfrequently destroyed. This 

 will always be the case in a country where land is 

 scarce and labour abundant, as it is clear that where 

 a horse and one man can perform the work of a 

 dozen men, it must be regarded in the same light as 

 throwing ten men out of employment. In the Uni- 

 ted States the difficulty is to obtain labour, as unoc- 

 cupied land is so abundant and cheap, that it is a 

 matter of favour rather than othei'wise wh>en the 

 labourer works for another rather than himself; 

 consequently, the prejudices that so seriously retard 

 agricultural improvements cannot exist here. 



The investigations that attended the failure of 

 TuU's system placed the doctrine of rotation and 

 the necessity of manures on a foundation not to be 

 shaken. Davy had shown the nutritive powers of 

 plants relatively and positively; and the analysis 

 of soils, now systematically undertaken, served to 

 explain why some were fertile and others the re- 

 verse. It is true, much on these and similar points 

 remains for science to perform ; yet ivhen it is rec- 

 oliected how very limited the time his been since 



