168 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



and refuses to adopt that of either of the others. 

 The power of a man, from his erect figure, and the 

 direction of his spine, acts most effectively in lifting. 

 When he works at a winch, his greatest force is in 

 lifting the handle from its lowest point in the circle, 

 to about half way up. For the same reason, in pulling 

 at the oar, or towing a barge, he inclines his figure as 

 much as possible in a direction perpendicular to the 

 stress. In digging, he lifts the soil more than the 

 plough does, and in pressing the spade into the 

 ground he still employs perpendicular force, limited 

 only by his weight. Manual labour is in fact most 

 powerful in perpendicular action. 



' But when the man gives up the spade, the hoe, 

 or the flail, and employs his horse to cultivate or 

 thresh for him, a new direction of applied power takes 

 place. The back-bone of the quadruped is horizon- 

 tal, not perpendicular, to the ground : and the adap- 

 tation of the power must be accordingly. The horse 

 cannot lift and press the implement of cultivation, 

 but he can draw it along; so the spade and the 

 hoe are turned into tools of draught, and are drawn 

 through the soil, raising it with the spiral- wedge-like 

 action of the plough, very damaging to the subsoil 

 upon which the whole stress and hardening pressure 



