202 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



I have found it inexpressibly difficult to get this 

 leading postulate clearly and once for all understood. 

 Till it is so it is hopeless to attempt to proceed. The 

 idea of an instrument to be dragged through the soil, 

 as a plough is, from one end of a field to another, 

 poisons more or less, not every, but nearly every 

 effort towards steam cultivation I have seen. How 

 difficult it is to wwlearn ! 



When the attempt was first made to run steam- 

 carriages on common roads, it was soon found that 

 however good a macadamized surface might be for a 

 wheel to roll upon, under a carriage drawn by horses, 

 it broke away into a perfect gravel-bed when the new 

 power instead of pulling the carriage which set the 

 wheels simply rolling underneath, laid hold of the 

 Wheel itself, and produced the locomotion of the 

 vehicle by forcibly driving the wheels round. The 

 very best road gave way under the severe friction of 

 this new mode of producing locomotion, and so did 

 the tires : and nothing could be done till both road 

 and wheel were made of solid iron. The new power 

 required a new process. Instead of pulling the car- 

 riage it drove the wheel, and in driving the wheel it 

 tore up the stones even of a Granite road. 



Let us put on our Agricultural spectacles, and apply 



