AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



371 



Dr. Home and others, have prescribed an earth bath for sick 

 persons, on the theory that the earth would absorb from their 

 bodies the contagious miasmata as it does putridity from meat, 

 &c., &c. 



[The Journal of Agriculture and the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural 

 Socity of Scotland. January 1857.] 



From this valuable publication, one of the most acceptable to us 

 of any in the English language, we extract the following, viz : 



MECHANICAL AIDS TO STEAM CULTURE. 



Agriculturists live in stirring times. No sooner is their atten- 

 tion directed to one innovation which they confess "there is some- 

 thing in it," than another is presented to them of a still more start- 

 ling character, giving a more painful shock to the prejudices of the 

 "slow,'' and a more decided impulse to the progressive faculty of 

 the go-ahead ftyrmer. Now that machine-reaping has made pro- 

 gress in spite of a few mechanical difficulties which will soon be 

 fully overcome — thinking men are pondering over a problem pos- 

 sessing still greater difficulties, but yet holding out a more splen- 

 did prize — that is "steam-culture." In full view of the won- 

 drous aid steam power has afforded us in our mills, on our railways 

 and alike on the placid lake, or restless ocean — it has as yet given 

 but little on our farms — but we have no difficulty in believing it 

 to be capable of performing great things. 



The patent of David Ramsay in the year 1630 for "making the 

 earth more fertile," was but an idea without attempting to carry 

 it out. He seems to urge the application of the steam engine — 

 then called "fire engine,'' to propel carriages and- cultivating in- 

 struments. 



In 1767, after an interval of 137 years, Francis Moore patented 

 a "fire engine to supplant horses, &c." So confident of success 

 was he and his friends, {an Inventor^ s friends! lucky man, luckier 

 than inventors now a days.) He said that horses were doomed, 

 so they sold their horses to avoid the loss, for steam would super- 

 sede them all as tlie motive power. Horses would soon be sold 

 for a quarter of their present value ! Those dreams were com- 

 forting, 



The next patent was in 1770, by Richard Lovell Edgeworth. 

 This was a fore-runner of BoydelPs recent traction-engine. 



In 1784, the celebrated James Watt patented "steam-carriages," 

 the propulsion of "land carriages." 



In 1810, Major Pratt took out a patent for — 



1. A series of plows revolving in a horizontal axis — the plows 

 being raised over the plowed land. 



