176 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FARM. 



it even desirable. The plough, the harrows, the 

 scuffler, and the horse-hoe, are but processes ren- 

 dered necessary by the only possible mode of apply- 

 ing horse-power to the turning and breaking of the 

 soil. 



' Mechanical power is totally different : and has 

 no more business to be applied to the plough, than a 

 horse to a spade. When horses have been taught 

 to dig, the steam-engine may perhaps be taught to 

 plough; but nothing will be gained by either; be- 

 cause it is NOT THEIR MODE OF ACTION, respec- 

 tively. The laws of Matter and of Motion are 

 imperative ; and pay no service to the wall-eyed 

 prejudice of man. Mechanical power has many 

 modes of action ; but whether wind, or water, or 

 steam, be the driving agent, the favourite motion is 

 the vertically-circular, or ' rotatory? The horizontal 

 water-wheel is good, but extravagant, and of limited 

 application; but it is worth mention as an excep- 

 tion. Where steam is employed, rotatory action is 

 almost universal. Instance the steam-paddle, the 

 screw-propeller, the common fly-wheel, the loco- 

 motive driving-wheel, the circular saw, the drum of 

 the threshing-machine, the steam-pump, and many 

 others that will occur to the recollection. When 



