oil Agricultural Imjylen tents. 



643 



carts, and the smaller number of horses required bj such carts 

 and by other improved machinery, would find that, without any 

 increase of outlay whatever beyond the old scale, he could acquire 

 all requisite modern machinery, with one exception, indeed — the 

 steam-engine, but the steam-enj^ine is often hired. It is there- 

 fore also demonstrated that the neic agricultural machines havCy 

 with reference to the amount of saving produced hy them, the merit 

 of very great cheapness. 



There is a further effect of machinery upon agriculture which 

 has hitherto been overlooked. The main difiiculty of farming 

 has always lain in its uncertainty. Though machinery has not 

 altogether cured, it certainly has much mitiirated, this evil. On 

 undrained clays a wet winter may destroy half the yield of the 

 wheat. On the same land drained, the wheat may escape altoge- 

 ther unhurt, and you may also plough heavy land in wet weather 

 when drained, though you could not before. Upon any land 

 wheat may suffer in winter, but in spring the presser settles it in its 

 bed, and the manure distributor with a cheap sprinkling restores 

 it to vigour. In sowing barley earliness may save the crop ; but 

 the ground is often too cloddy, though the season is wearing away, 

 and May-drought approaching. This cloddiness may be pre- 

 vented, as has been said, by the paring plough, or, if it could not 

 be prevented, may be remedied by the clod-crusher, or Nor- 

 wegian harrow; and besides these implements, the cultivator does 

 the plough's work in one-fourth of the former time, thus enabling 

 the I'armer to profit by the auspicious hour of seed-time. And 

 so too with the turnip : the land, being prepared for it in the pre- 

 vious autumn and winter, is moist to receive the seed ; the dry 

 drill, supplying it with superphosphate, saves it almost certainly 

 from the fly ; or yet more, the water-drill, anticipating the clouds, 

 makes its seed-time independent of weather, while the horse-hoe 

 afterwards preserves it from neglect in the busiest harvest-time. 

 Again, while machinery remedies the absence, it also guards 

 against the inconvenient arrival of rain, by making our hay and 

 now even reaping our corn while the sun shines. It may be 

 further said then, that machinery has given to farming what it 

 most wanted, not absolute, indeed, hut comparative certainty. 



I wish I could add that the use of machinery has advanced as 

 rapidly as its improvement. Still it has advanced greatlv, as is 

 shown by the increase not only of implements but of eminent im- 

 plement-makers, and the sale has never been so great as it has 

 been this year. Yet even the best new machines are not yet 

 adopted into general use. This incomplete progress may, how- 

 ever, easily be accounted for. The farmer, whose life is secluded, 

 has little opportunity of seeing them, and it is remarkable 

 that nearly all our first implement makers live on the east 



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