200 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



that crushed the fragment berry had worked by hori- 

 zontal, vertical, alternate, elbow-crank, or by circular 

 motion ? If the farmer or the gardener could only 

 have his seed-bed made ready for him as fine as a new 

 mole-heap, or to any other coarser texture, according 

 as he wants it, do you think he would care whether 

 the soil had been first cut into longitudinal strips, 

 plough-fashion, or into square cubes, spade-fashion, 

 before it was finally granulated for use ? Surely the 

 one is as indifferent as the other ; and singularly 

 enough, both offer problems far more difficult to the 

 steam-engine (if anything can be called so), than the 

 performance at once of the ultimate and entire process 

 without these preliminary forms at all. 



Until steam-power was discovered, this possibility 

 did not exist. Wind and water power being out of 

 the question, there remained nothing for it no other 

 power that could be taken to the field but men or 

 horses. Ploughing or digging, then, were the indis- 

 pensable preliminaries : there was no getting on with- 

 out them : they were but preliminaries, it is true, the 

 former leaving everything, the latter a great deal 

 (according as the work was done) to be accomplished 

 afterwards to complete the cultivation. 



But it is not so now. Since the birth of the steam- 



