190 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



in all. I do not think stones will stand long in the 

 way of Steam, or be readily preferred to bread, if, 

 where there happens to be none, the steam-driven 

 cultivator can be brought to bear, which, after the 

 simple and beautiful example of the mole, shall play 

 out the long comedy of our present field cultivation 

 in a single act, present a finely-granulated seed-bed 

 by a single process, almost at the hour required, and 

 trammel up the " long summer fallow " into the labour 

 of a day, with an accuracy as perfect as the turning 

 of a Lathe, and an aeration (and consequent oxygen- 

 ation) of the soil as diffusive and minute as that of 

 a scattered mole-heap, or the dust flying from a 

 circular-saw bench. 



* Implement-makers and mechanicians would not be 

 long in understanding all this, if they were not under 

 the supposition, received at second-hand by them, 

 and therefore the more difficult to eradicate, that 

 ploughing is a necessary form of cultivation to be kept 

 in view. Once let the Q.E.F. be clearly understood 

 by them once let them be made fully to perceive 

 that " ploughing " is merely the first of a long series 

 of means towards the accomplishment of a particular 

 end, that end being the production of a seed-bed, of 

 suitable depth and texture, and with the soil as 



