THE PLAIN 'ENGLISH' OF IT. 177 



before ever the engraver's tool had given it outward 

 form and semblance. If ploughing were ever done by 

 steam, that were no doubt the most obvious way, and 

 as good a way as any. But I hold it (under favour) 

 to be an idea fundamentally erroneous to attempt to 

 combine steam-machinery with the plough. And 1 

 hope I am not presumptuous in recording my convic- 

 tion that until the idea of the Plough, and in a word, 

 of all Draw/M-cultivation is utterly abandoned, no 

 effective progress will be made in the application of 

 Steam to the tilling of the earth. I repeat what I 

 have said before, that ' ploughing ' is a mere contri- 

 vance for applying animal-power to tillage. Get out 

 of animal-power, and you leave 'ploughing' behind 

 altogether. Get into steam-power and you have no 

 more to do with the plough, than a Horse has to do 

 with a spade. It is no essential whatever of cultiva- 

 tion that it should be done by the traction of the im- 

 plement. Spade-work is perpendicular. Horse-work 

 is horizontal. Machine-work is circular. 



Who would now dream of retaining the form of 

 the hand-flail in the Threshing-machine, or that of 

 the oar in a steam-ship, or of putting the piston-rod 

 to work at the lever-end of a pump-handle? Yet 

 doubtless these piebald attempts were all made in 



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