CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



introduction of the Steam-engine to that branch of 

 farm operations was at once made easy. The right 

 motion existed before the Steam-engine was brought 

 to bear upon it. 



Once let this be done for clay-soil cultivation ; once 

 let all that has been said and written, and proved, 

 about the properties of such soil, and the properties 

 of the atmosphere, the habits of plants and instincts 

 of roots, condense into an act of mechanism whose 

 aim and object shall be the most perfect subdivision 

 that can be effected at a single operation ; and the 

 conquest of the clays is achieved. It will then be 

 seen that none but a PORTABLE power could accom- 

 plish it, that its practicability lay hidden in the 

 womb of the future, till the Steam-engine appeared, 

 and manual and horse power were severally discarded, 

 the one to the garden, the other to the road where 

 locomotion from place to place is a real and primary 

 object of the power and mechanism employed. 



The infinitely graduated varieties of soil that exist 

 between the lightest sand and the stiffest clay, pre- 

 venting as they have done that marked line of dif- 

 ferent treatment that a more rigid contrast of the 

 opposed qualities of sand and clay would have sug- 

 gested, together with the further variations of ' tern- 



