THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 217 



few who gave a serious thought to' the subject, 

 looked upon the Steam-engine rather as a piece of 

 concentrated horse-power to be harnessed as best it 

 might to the existing horse-worked implements, than 

 as a New Agent, whose entry on the scene of action 

 enabled him to reconsider the whole philosophy of 

 Tillage, to analyze it into its elements, to see what 

 it is; what it had been when confined to manual 

 power under the primeval dynasty of the Spade and 

 Hoe ; what it was under the advanced but equally 

 special limitations of animal power, as exhibited in 

 the Plough and every other implement of draught ; and 

 what it might be under the wider sphere of available 

 process which the Steam-engine presented. What 

 was cultivation ? Did Steam-power offer any cheaper, 

 better, or more direct mode of performing it, than 

 manual or animal power had done ? Could it accom- 

 plish in one act the problem of converting the hard 

 clod into fine soil ? Could it, like the little Mole, 

 cut a seed-bed out of the solid ? If so, why entangle 

 it with implements foreign to its nature, unessential 

 to its action, and behind it in that order of inventive 

 progress whose deep-cut label is " Vestigia NULLA 



EETKORSUM " ? 



