230 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
STEAM ON COUNTRY ROADS. 
Losses year after year and increasing competition 
indicate that the crops now grown are not sufficient to 
support the farmer. When he endeavours, however, to 
vary his method of culture, and to introduce something 
new, he is met at the outset by two great difficulties 
which crush out the possibility of enterprise. The first 
of these—the extraordinary tithe—has already come 
into prominent notice; the second is really even more 
important—it is the deficiency of transit. An extensive 
use of steam on common roads appears essential to a 
revival of agricultural prosperity, because without it it is 
almost impossible for delicate and perishable produce to 
be quickly and cheaply brought to market. Railways, 
indeed, now connect nearly every town of any size what- 
ever throughout the country with the large cities or 
London ; but railways are necessarily built as lines of 
communication between towns, and not in reference to 
scattered farms. Upon the map the spaces between the 
various rails do not look very broad, but those white 
bands when actually examined would be found .-to be 
six, eight, ten, or even twenty milcs wide. Nor are 
there stations everywhere, so that a farm which may be 
only six miles from the metals may be ten from the 
nearest platform. Goods trains do not, as in the United 
States, stop to pick up wherever there is material or 
produce waiting to be loaded; the produce has to. be 
