Year: 1872

bo. rlovod n leadinq part in navigation; why not
also in cultivation Does Nature afford any reason
for regarding Wind as inherently tractable ana
seryicaable on water but not on land Men ha'o
ground grain by wnd-power Tor at least nun
dred generations why not thresh it as well Nay
why should il not press cheese, and turn gilhu-
stone. and saw wood, and pump water an even,
ultimately, plow fields Who dreams that me IN
ventions of the past bear any proportion to hose OF
the imminent futurel We have at length learned
that such is the elasticity of air that wind
mill Ennng throughout the night may thereby
accumulate power TO be expended during the ensu-
ing day or days. Can you suppose that we shall
much longer allow this enormous aggregate of
power which has hitherto thrust itself into our
very faces unregarded or at least uncomprehended,
to expend its energies in topping over our chmneys
and blowing the apples from our treesf tell you
that this is not possible. have nothing to say OF
AS or BIS OF Cs cOntrvance for utilizing the power
of wind in the service of Agriculture If you insist
that all these are fantastic and absurd, shall not
contradict you; shall only insist in my turn that
the power is there-that it sweeps over every field
on almost every day. and that the means of utiliz-
ing it, if not vet discovered soon will and must be.


ii. Wate.-A hilly, woody country naturally
abouAds in springs and brooks-in ripping stream
lets and dashing cascades All these of
powcr-for the most part unused unTegarded power.
Our waterfalls, whether natural or artificial, VIII
yet be employed to create Il should say transfer
power in the shape Of compressed air; and this
power will i'm time be used at long distances from
the point at which it was pressed into theseryce OF
Man. Especially in regions like this, where con-
siderable streamlets often fall hundred feet III
mile, will water be made TO play an important part
in the creation or utilization of power for the farmer
The Hon. William d. Kelley, arguing to a Southern


&C rtaIt ~ n
dozen men and dogs had often followed for days on
the tract, Of one lame negro while water-power
equivalent to the muscular force of thousand
negroes ran to waste unregarded beside them. We
smile at the folly thus forciby exposed; but might
not the smile be broadened into laugh and turned
against oursclves2 If we lack the brain-power to
stop this mOnstrous waste feel that our grand
children will possess and exercise it.


III. Stoam.-Whether Steam may or may not soon
be superseded by Electricity some other natural
force cannot stop here to consider. L cannot be-
leve that the power which sends messages in an in
slant from Stamboul to San Francisco will long be
found inadequate unfit to Tighten the farmers
labor or to increase its product As yet, however,
Steam is the only force artifcaly evolved from Dead


inorganic matter which has been widely pressed into
the service of Productive Industry. Steam forges
and hammers and cuts Iron it converts animal and



tile Fabric; it is to-day doing more work than all
the artisans and artcers on earth could do without
it. Steam is to-day Mans most useful servant; the
Horse and the Ok do his bidding on far wider
area; but their relative power is declining, while
that of Steam is still rapidly advancing. To dis
pense with Steam would set us back long stage on
the road whereby we have advanced from bar
barism.


But Steam has as yet rendered little direct service
to the farmer 1t should and might have rendered
much Animal power is not merely slow and in
effective in comparison with this it labors under
the capital disadvantage of being costly while idly
waiting through weeks and months for the return OF
GENIAL weather; whereas a steam engine no longer
used OF needed may be oiled up and set away under
shelter, where it need consume nothing until once
more needed If Steam were as costly while in use
as Horse power this fact would render it immensely
preferable. Never striking for higher wages for
fewer hours Steam will work increasingly, uncom-
plainingy from Monday morning till Saturday
night asking only to be fed and drinking nothing
stronger than water.


Our harsh, capriciOus climate, with its late and
early frosts, its long frozen and then thoroughly
sodden fields, invites to the use of Steam. have
known Illinois and her neighbors to be visited by
rain after rain in Springtim so that scarcely an
acre per township of plOwing for Corn had been
effected by the middle of May. Now the sky clears.
the soil dries and everything invites to plowing and
planting; but there is hardly time to put in half
crop before seeding must give way TO cultivating,
and the planted area can be no further enlarged.
With Steam Plows, Quadruple the present number
of acres may be fitted to receive the seed in week
and so all the risk and loss to which rainy
in Spring now subjects us may be obviated.


OF course, New-Engand will neyermore grow all
her own grain she can do better. But that she
might advantageously grow more grain, and larger
average crops of it, L fully believe The chief OBJ
stacle to her grain growing nheres not in her climate
nor even in the qualities of her soil but in its vicious
topography. An arabic, fertile acre or so, with
rocky ridge on one side and morass or sodden,
weedy brook-margn on the other affords no
scope for the profitable growing of grain. Our
Eastern Agriculture is too fragmentary-a thing
of shreds and patches. As l sat beside New
Enpland-born farmer in Illinois, and looked
off across his quarter-section of dry fertile
prairie mainly under fence, l asked him, How
much Corn do you grow annuallyp About sixty
acresD "With what helpp "None" "What area
do Won plant in day 7" Fourteen acres" 1t would
take man week. on an average, to plant fourteen
acres hereabout and then it would not be so well
nlanted as by the IinOisian's seeddrill, dropping
and covering two rows fast he wanted to walk.


Now the hilly, swampy irregular surface of New
ENGLAND is an unalterabe fact, and such to be re-
spected. But, while it cannot be overcome, it may
be modified Hero are two strips Of rich, arabic
soil. with a swampy intervale separating them.
Drain that efficiently, and you have field of
twelve to fifteen acres, all of which may be this
wear in Potatoes next year i'll Corn. then In Oats,
and then laid down in Grass, or cropped IN whatever
rotation experience may suggest. If the arabic
fields of this State were thus enlarged, by the
sweepine away of fences the removal of superficial
rocs and the draining of bogs, until ten to forty