190 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FARM. 



know how it is, but it seems to haunt me like. 

 You 've done me harm ["Hal"?] you have indeed! 

 I used to love follering the plough, and see it heave 

 up the furrow-slice so smooth and nice, and swelling 

 the rich earth as it swam along, better than anything 

 else I know on earth except, perhaps, hearing my 

 little Fanny reading when I come home sleepy at 

 nights, but now I don't know how it is, I seem to 

 run my head again' it every time I see it, on stiff 

 ground, a-squeeging and pressing, and kneading its 

 way along : it gives me the very headache to look at 

 it ; it does really ! Now, please not to mind about 

 the long words, for once ; but let me hear it on to 

 the end. I should like to know the worst on it 

 and the best, if there is any. I want to know, now, 

 really, why, if Steam 's the proper thing why it 

 hasn't been done. They do most things by steam 

 now-a-days : if it is to get upon the fields, why don't 

 it? What stops it ?" 



"You have asked," said I, "the very question I 

 ask too Why is it that amongst all the great inven- 

 tions of the day, the subject of CULTIVATION BY STEAM 

 seems to hang fire. Not for want of thought upon 

 the topic ; for there are many minds full of thought 

 about it, and few people now-a-days believe the thing 



