MACHINERY OF THE CLAYS. 225 



subject of a * Lecture' before a patronizing Council ; 

 but as a solid, working-day, every-day, practical fact, 

 then the Mechanics of agriculture will not be far 

 behind ! Then the * touching truisms' of Tull the 

 Galileo of agricultural science, the Luther of modern 

 husbandry, struggling single-handed against a whole 

 Dark-age of ignorance and banded prejudice will 

 reach the * promised land' he saw and pointed out 

 with the finger of the seer, but was never allowed to 

 enter. Blending into the truest of union with the after- 

 discoveries of Davy, De Candolle, Liebig, Boussin- 

 gault, and our own not less deserving Johnston and 

 Lawes, and others of distinguished note, his theory 

 of ' Cultivation' will propound matter of deep thought 

 and combined action equally to the chemist and 

 mechanician. 



When the simple mechanical idea of pulveration, 

 comminution, subdivision, or by whatever other long 

 name men may please to understand it, shall be seen 

 in its chemical meaning, as connected with the food of 

 plants the * pasture of roots', as Jethro Tull, with 

 appropriate metaphor, described it, then the claim 

 and application of the Steam-engine will be made out 

 and recognized, and the name of James Watt will be 

 found as important to agriculture as that of Humphry 

 Davy. 



