Economical Manajcmenl of Materials, &c., on the Farm. £01 
firing, obviating the necessity of forced or over-firing, and gcne- 
r.illy secure economical consumption and working throughout. 
No doubt in the portable engines most recently sent out the 
dimensions of the various spaces are so well proportioned that 
an extraordinary degree of "efficiency" is secured in the boiler- 
working. Still, there are throughout the country in daily 
use an enormous number of engines of this class which have 
been so long in use that they may be said to have outlived the 
period of improvement ; and with this, or at least with many 
of this class, the poor stoker is almost compelled to be con- 
tinually " forcing his fire." And any one at all acquainted 
with what furnaces are and what stoking is, no sooner opens 
the furnace door than he sees that forced firing is unavoidable 
under such circumstances of confined heating and water spaces. 
Indeed, one does not always require to look into the fur- 
nace ; it is often enough for the expert to look at the boiler 
barrel, and to compare it with the power or dimensions of the 
engine. 
Fortahle and Fixed or Stationary Steam-engines and Boilers. — 
Although by many overlooked in considering the elements 
which alfect the question of economical driving of engines, 
it is worthy of note that much of this is frequently depen- 
dent upon the kind or class of engine and boiler em- 
ployed. Practical engineers know the points of distinction 
between fixed or stationary and the usual class of portable 
engines and boilers. These points are by many quite over- 
looked when the question of the kind of engine to be put down 
is being considered. This is scarcely to be wondered at, when 
we remember that the question — so long a vexed one in agri- 
cultural mechanics — of stationary and portable steam-engines has 
long been looked upon as settled, and that by a verdict wholly 
in favour of the portable — the stationary nowhere. But there is 
in this perhaps another instance how circumstances generally 
bring about, or tend to bring about, a reversal of the original 
decision. It is not here aflfirmed that this reversal is at all 
complete. Far from that. But stationary engines have not only 
held their own, maintaining the position they occupied when 
the controversy was decided, but they have of late years 
greatly increased in numbers. At all events this is more 
abundantly evident that circumstances are very materially 
altered in favour of the use of stationary or fixed engines, as 
compared with the period of settlement above alluded to. A 
vast deal more work is concentrated at the farmery or farm 
building requiring power to do it than was contemplated at 
the period I have referred to. Then everything apparently 
pointed to the fact that the work of the steam-engine lay outside 
