178 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



their day, till the several inventors had come to see 

 in turn that 



" 'Tis gude to be off with the old love 

 Before ye be on wi' the new !" 



But no one can imagine, without trying it, the dif- 

 ficulty of making the mechanical part of the question 

 intelligible to the agriculturist, and the agricultural 

 part to the machinist. The steam-engine has no 

 taste whatever for straight draught. He is a revolu- 

 tionist, in the most exact sense of the word. He 

 works by revolution : and by revolution only will he 

 cut up the soil into a seed-bed, of the pattern re- 

 quired, be it coarse or fine. And that, it is my firm 

 belief, he will be seen doing at a handsome average, 

 before a very large portion of another century shall 

 have passed over. Why should it not be? Why 

 should not a strip or lair of earth be cut up into fine 

 soil at one operation (and sown and harrowed in, too), 

 as easily as a circular-saw cuts a plank into saw-dust V 

 But when you come to employing 



a Steam-engine 



to turn a Drum. 



to wind a Rope, 



to drag a Plough, 



to turn up a Furrow, 



