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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
insufficient our horse-power was for such supplementary 
labour. Bentall and Coleman had furnished the desired land- 
parers, but we yet wanted the auxiliary force. Scarcely 
anybody at that period had conjectured the possibility of aban- 
doning the dead fallow system, so long- in clay districts a recog- 
nized process in all programmes of rotation ; nor, indeed, was 
it until 1855 that the dawn of such a day was heralded to 
those advanced ones who are always watching on the mountain 
heights where the first streaks of light are visible. But, what 
a change have we now ! W e are at home with F owleFs steam 
plough and Smith's “ smasher." The squire’s horse takes no 
more heed of the engine traversing the headland than of the 
hare crossing the road ; dead fallows are virtually abandoned ; 
the clays are reclaimed ; they are absolutely to be considered of 
some use to us, and the land now overshadowed by broad blade 
and glossy leaf, was cleared and laid up last autumn to be pul- 
verized by the glacial influences of winter and fertilized by the 
free access of air and rain. This is a glorious, a highly poetical 
revolution ; and it has occurred in less than ten years ! Calcu- 
late, if you can, the effect which may be produced by the untiring- 
toil of some two hundred of these steam-driven cultivators — 
ripping up the solid pavement made by the pressure of the 
horses’ feet and the sole of the team-drawn plough, impervious 
alike to rain, and root, and air. A new mine is opened — or, 
in other words, the corn-growing area of our island-home is ex- 
tended, doubled, trebled — not horizontally but vertically. You 
may search in vain for inventions in other departments of this 
Exhibition, likely to produce such singularly advantageous 
effects upon the future of our country. 
We will not now enter upon the consideration of ultimate 
advantages, but will endeavour to narrate the steps which led to 
the present state of the rope-traction system of steam-tillage. 
It would occupy too much space to tell the whole history, taking 
our readers back to 1630, or beginning- at a later date, rendered 
memorable by an enthusiastic inventor who induced several 
neighbours to part with their horses because he had designed a 
machine to supersede them. Such a trip into the past would be 
very pleasant, but we shall just fall in where Mr. Fowler, 
having solved the difficulty of draining land by steam, was 
quick enough to perceive that the attempt to do one thing had 
given him the power to do another, and that, though draining 
might be better done by men than by steam, ploughing might 
be performed more cheaply and conveniently by steam than 
horses. This was in 1855, when intelligent farmers were 
wishing for horses without feet, and implements that would 
work night and day during the critical six weeks of September 
and October. The windlass he used for the mole plough served 
