THE ' STEAM-CULTIVATOB.' 203 



of such arms, a sort of revolving BRIAREUS, not rolling 

 let that be especially remembered but steam- 

 driven, a thousand dog-power if you please, for we 

 must not even mention horses, or we shall drop 

 back into the old Scylla and Charybdis of * traction ' 

 and of * rolling,' two ideas each to be eschewed like 

 poison. 



Let us suppose the picture of this formidable- 

 looking cylinder of claws to be sufficiently described, 

 for the moment reminding one, at a distant view, of 

 a half-breed between a hay-tedding machine and a 

 CROSSKILL'S clod-crusher (but unlike them, fun- 

 damentally distinct from any and every instrument 

 that was ever seen afield, as doing its work not by 

 traction, not by its rolling weight, but DRIVEN by 

 its axis, as the steam-paddle, the circular saw, the 

 driving-wheel of the locomotiye, are driven), sup- 

 ported by its own apparatus, and abrading the soil 

 with'its armed teeth, first cutting its trench, burying 

 itself to the required depth, and then commencing its 

 onward task, tearing down the bank (so to speak) on 

 the advancing side, canting back the abraded soil, 

 earth's saw-dust,' comminuted, aerated, inverted,' into 

 the trench it leaves behind. 



If I have failed in making the picture clear or 



