OR Agricultural Implements. 



621 



fitted for more intricate ends, and showed palpably that agricul- 

 ture had not kept aloof from the spreading- dominion of steam. 

 Fixed steam-engines have been long used in Northumberland 

 and East Lothian, in which spirited counties every farm has its 

 tall chimney. These moveable steam-engines have been called 

 forth by the Royal Agricultural Society within the last ten years, 

 and appear preferable in general to the fixed engines for the fol- 

 lowing reasons : — 



If a farm be a large one, and especially if, as is often the case, 

 it be of an irregular shape, there is great waste of labour for 

 horses and men in brinofins: home all the corn in the straw to one 

 point, and in again carrying out the dung to a distance of perhaps 

 two or three miles. It is therefore common, and should be 

 general, to have a second outlying yard. This accommodation 

 cannot be reconciled with a fixed engine. 



If the farm be of a moderate size, it will hardly — and if small 

 will certainly not — bear the expense of a fixed engine : there 

 would be waste of capital in multiplying fixed engines to be 

 worked but a few days in a year. It is now common, therefore, 

 in some counties for a man to invest a small capital in a moveable 

 engine, and earn his livelihood by letting it out to the farmer. 



Hornsby's Steam-engine and Holmes's No. 8 Machine. 



But there is a further advantage in these moveable engines, 

 little, I believe, if at all known. Hitherto corn has been threshed 

 under cover in barns ; but with these engines and the improved 

 threshing-machines we can thresh the rick in the open air at once 

 as it stands. It will be said. How can you thresh out of doors on 

 a wet day? The answer is simple. Neither can you move your 



