THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 209 



menccd when the spade was abandoned in field-cul- 

 ture for the plough, and which was to continue so 

 long as horse-power tillage continued : and no longer : 

 since it formed (as the spade had already shown) no 

 necessary element of cultivation, and had no relevance 

 whatever with the action or capabilities of the Steam- 

 engine. 



( Steam-power having however been hitherto chiefly 

 employed in Manufactures, and its versatile modes of 

 application being unfamiliar to the agriculturist, we 

 can scarcely be surprised, that even those few who 

 gave a serious thought to the subject, looked upon 

 the Steam-engine rather as a piece of concentrated 

 horse-power to be harnessed as best it might to the 

 existing horse-worked implements, than as a New 

 Agent, whose entry on the scene of action enabled 

 him to reconsider the whole philosophy of Tillage, to 

 analyse it into its elements, to see what it was ; what 

 it had been when confined to manual power under the 

 primeval dynasty of the Spade and Hoe : what it was 

 under the advanced but equally special limitations of 

 animal power, as exhibited in the Plough and every 

 other implement of draught ; and what it might be 

 under the wider sphere of available process which the 

 Steam-engine presented. "What was cultivation ? Did 



p 



