1870.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4-57 
to the farmer.” The committee go on to quote 
Mr. Pursey to sustain the doctrine that in¬ 
creased speed does not add to cost, “though 
they [the fast walking horses] are stepping 
briskly along at a pace which enables them to 
work five-quarters of an acre in a day, while 
the dragging walk of the other horses carries 
them through three-quarters of an acre only, in 
the same time. They feel the weight of the 
plow certainly not more than the others; per¬ 
haps even less.” 
Admitting as true what is said by the com¬ 
mittee in regard to friction being “ entirely in¬ 
dependent of velocit}’’,” were they justified in 
drawing the conclusion at which they arrived? 
One of the greatest men that ever lived, 
George Stephenson, the father of the locomotive 
steam-engine and of the railroad system, began 
his great works without any of the advantages 
of what we call education ; and he was forced 
to prove by actual experiment, laws that scientif¬ 
ic men were familiar with long before his time. 
So he, in 1818, made a series of careful ex¬ 
periments to determine the resistance that was 
encountered by carriages moving along rail¬ 
ways—and he demonstrated that “ friction was 
a constant quantity at all velocities.”—Vince 
and Coulomb had before developed this theory, 
and it was well known to scientific men; but it 
had not been believed nor acted upon by prac¬ 
tical engineers before Mr. Stephenson’s experi¬ 
ments. (See Lives of George and Robert Stephen¬ 
son, , by Smiles, page 202). 
The discovery of this law did not mislead Mr. 
Stephenson, and he probably never for a mo¬ 
ment supposed that a train of cars could be 
moved as cheaply at the rate of thirty miles an 
hour, as it could at fifteen. He knew that the 
index of his dynamometer stood at the same 
figure in both rates of speed, but he also knew 
that his pistons traveled the length of the cyl¬ 
inders just twice as often in a given time, when 
the train moved at the rate of thirty miles per 
hour, as they did when it moved fifteen mildf 
per hour; or to state the case, in another wky, 
he knew that he expended just the same power 
on each mile at both rates of speed. In each 
case the same pressure of steam on the pistons 
was required, and the cylinders had in one cftse 
to be filled with steam twice as often as in the 
other, and it took twice the number of pounds 
of coal to make the steam for a given length of 
time at the high rate of speed that it did at the 
low rate. So Stephenson knew that it cost just 
as much to run his train (friction alone being 
under consideration) a mile whatever the speed 
might be; and certainly he never fell into the 
error of supposing that he could run a mile at 
higher rate of speed at less cost than it could 
be run at the lower rate. 
The steam-engine has a way of speaking for 
itself, that fast walking horses have not. The 
engine asks for fuel and water, and will have it 
supplied just at the time it is consumed. It 
neither draws upon a stock of fat before ac¬ 
cumulated, nor does it lay in a new supply of 
strength by a subsequent rest; nor does the 
engine tire, as does the horse. 
What is the power of a horse? By general 
consent it has been defined to be equivalent to 
the raising of 33,000 pounds one foot high in one 
minute. Why not say two feet high in one 
minute, if horses can plow with the same ex¬ 
penditure of power two acres that they can one ? 
Let no man fancy that a given quantity of 
land can be plowed without the expenditure of 
a positive quantity of power, and that being a 
fixed quantity, though perhaps an unknown one 
to the plowman, if must be expended, without 
regard to the time taken; or, if the time is ex¬ 
tremely short or extremely long, it will be found 
that the animals that draw the plow would last 
best with the use of the longest time. 
There are many other considerations besides 
the mere friction caused in plowing, that should 
be taken into consideration in determining the 
speed best to adopt in any given case. This I 
have purposely avoided discussing in the fore¬ 
going remarks. It will furnish abundant ma¬ 
terial for an article that I may some time at¬ 
tempt. Geo. Geddes. 
-->< .«ae—- t-m - 
Remedy for Drouth. 
The extreme drouth which has prevailed in 
many parts of the country, drying up the brooks, 
destrojdng the fish, and, in many places, making 
a total failure of corn and potatoes’, leads us to 
inquire for a remedy. Is there any ? Has man 
any power over nature? Can we add to, or di¬ 
minish, the rain-fall? There are many facts in 
the history of the old world, which go to show, 
that man has much of this power, and that he 
may so direct his labors as to modify very es¬ 
sentially the climate, as well as the soil. Coun¬ 
tries once fertile are now nearly barren, and 
sustain but a handful of people. Their brooks 
are dried up, and the rain-fall is greatly dimin¬ 
ished. On the Oliver hand, wells sunk in the 
desert make an oaSis, and the spot of ve’fdure 
increases with the passing years, until showers 
fall upon the parched sands. A remark-able in¬ 
stance of the effect of man’s labors upon climate 
is now going on in the Great Salt Lake Valley, 
in our own country. When the Mormons first 
settled this region, they were entirely dependent 
upon irrigation for their crops. The supply of 
water was small, and they feared lest with the 
increase of their population, there might, not be 
at last enough to irrigate all their lands, and 
famine must stare them in the face. But they 
have tilled their lands, planted trees, which are 
now large and completely embower their city, 
and their gardens are full of fruit trees and flow¬ 
ering shrubs. Many thousands of acres, once 
barren, have been made more productive than in 
rainy climates. Enormous sums have been 
spent in bringing water by artificial channels 
from the distant mountains to make these now 
fertile fields. The face of the earth has been 
changed, and there has been a corresponding 
change in the climate. They now have rains 
from the sky, almost enough to meet the wants 
of growing crops, a thing unheard of until within 
a few years. The effect of the increased rain¬ 
fall in the Valley has had a very marked ef¬ 
fect upon the Great Salt Lake, which is 123 
miles long by 45 miles wide. It has risen 12 
feet since the Mormon occupation, and the water 
has a smaller proportion of salt. Formerly it, 
took three gallons of water to make one of salt, 
now it requires four. The change has also af¬ 
fected the streams that flow through the Valley, 
and it is estimated that the same channels carry 
twice as much water as formerly, for the pur¬ 
poses of irrigation. These facts are very en¬ 
couraging, not only to the Mormons, but to the 
settlers along the line of the Pacific Railroad, 
where there is little rain. It may be expected 
that irrigation, and cultivation, and the planting 
of trees will gradually work a change in the cli¬ 
mate, and make rainless regions productive.— 
There can be no doubt that the removal of for¬ 
ests from a country has a tendency to diminish 
the rain-fall, and to make the showers less fre¬ 
quent as well as less abundant. If the clearing 
) 
process is carried too far, we do not have rain 
enough to give us average crops. The most 
desirable proportion of forest to cleared fields is 
reckoned in France at one of the former to four 
of the latter, and the government of that coun¬ 
try regulates forest culture for the general good. 
In this country there is no regulation, and every 
man follows his own sweet will in destroying 
trees. We think the time is not far distant, 
when our government will have to look after 
this matter, and place some restriction upon the 
removal of forests, and encourage the planting 
of trees upon the prairies, and in the rainless re¬ 
gions. Wood and timber are growing very 
scarce and high, in some of the older parts of the 
country; and streams once full of water are now 
nearly dry for the larger part of the year. Wo 
very much want information disseminated upon 
this subject. The instinct of self-preservation, 
if it were enlightened, would lead farmers to 
preserve their forests upon the mountains and 
hills, in which our streams take their rise, and 
not to drain too many of the swamps in these 
high lands. The springs at the source of every 
brook should be sacredly guarded. These high 
lands are generally rocky, rough, and steep, and 
quite impracticable for the plow. They are fa¬ 
vorable to the growth of wood, and should be 
left as sources for the supply of fuel, timber, 
and rain, for the benefit of the whole country. 
Hand Thrashing Machines. —We were not 
a little interested at seeing three hand thrashing 
machines at the N. England Fair, and we believe 
there are others which were not there exhibited. 
The earliest attempts to thrash by machinery 
were, we believe, with hand thrashers. The 
curious will find a reference in Washington’s 
Diary under the date of January 22d, 1790, to 
his having called upon the Baron de Pcellnilz 
to see his thrashing machine, by which it is 
clear that long before the introduction of horse 
thrashers, a tolerably effective hand machine 
was employed. The new hand thrashers are 
cheap machines, work easily, and quite expe¬ 
ditiously, and do their work well, we believe. 
They were looked upon with great favor by the 
small farmers; and at this time when skilled 
farm labor is so hard to find, we think thej^ arc 
just in time to supply a great want. 
---aa-e-m——*-«■- 
Fattening Sheep in Wfnlte¥; 
“A Young Farmer” in Canada writes: “I 
see that ‘Walks and Talks’ thinks it profitable 
to fatten sheep in winter. I tried it the past 
winter on a small scale, and have not found it 
so, and should be glad to know what is the 
trouble. I put up four of my worst lambs with 
some old ewes. They had all the clover hay 
they would eat, good water every day, a few 
peas in the morning and some oats at night, 
besides roots. They were kept in a good, warm, 
dry frame house, but had no yard to run out in. 
The old ewes did very well, but of the lambs 
one is dead, another is likely to die; the third is 
as poor as when shut up, and-the other one is well 
improved. They have no disease, but gradually 
got poorer and weaker. Do you think slice;) 
feed better in good-sized flocks, and is an open 
shed that is dry better than a closed house ?” 
It is not well to put lambs and old sheep to¬ 
gether in the same flock. The old sheep prob¬ 
ably got most of the grain. The fact that the 
ewes did well, indicates that the trouble was not 
in the house or in the feeding. But it should 
be remembered that young, growing sheep re- 
