230 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



motion existed before the Steam-engine was brought to 

 bear upon it. 



Once let this be done for clay-soil cultivation; 

 once let all that has been said and written, and 

 proved, about the properties of such soil, and the 

 properties of the atmosphere, the habits of plants and 

 instincts of roots, condense into an act of mechanism 

 whose aim and object shall be the most perfect sub- 

 division that can be effected at a single operation ; 

 and the conquest of the clays is achieved. It will 

 then be seen that none but a PORTABLE power could 

 accomplish it, that its practicability lay hidden in the 

 womb of the future, till the Steam-engine appeared, 

 and manual and horse power were severally discarded, 

 the one to the garden, the other to the road, where 

 locomotion from place to place is a real and primary 

 object of the power and mechanism employed. 



The infinitely graduated varieties of soil that exist 

 between the lightest sand and the stiffest clay, pre- 

 venting as they have done that marked line of 

 different treatment that a more rigid contrast of the 

 opposed qualities of sand and clay would have sug- 

 gested, together with the further variations of 

 ' temper ' alternating with the conditions of wet and 



