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Undeveloped Sources Of Power


The more I consider the present state of our Agriculture, the more

emphatic is my discontent with the farmer's present sources and command

of power. The subjugation and tillage of a farm, like the running of a

factory or furnace, involves a continual use of Power; but the

manufacturer obtains his from sources which supply it cheaply and in

great abundance, while the farmer has been content with an inferior

article, in
imited supply, at a far heavier cost. Yet the stream which

turns the factory's wheels and sets all its machinery in motion

traverses or skirts many farms as well, and, if properly harnessed, is

just as ready to speed the plow as to impel the shuttles of a

woolen-mill, or revolve the cylinders of a calico-printery. Nature is

impartially kind to all her children; but some of them know how to

profit by her good-will far more than others. No doubt, we all have much

yet to learn, and our grandchildren will marvel at the proofs of

stupidity evinced in our highest achievements; but I am not mistaken in

asserting that, as yet, the farmers' control of Nature's free gifts of

power is very far inferior to that of nearly every other class of

producers.



I have been having much plowing done this Fall--in my orchards, for what

I presume to be the good of the trees; on my drained swamp, because it

is not yet fully subdued and sweetened, and I judge that the Winter's

freezing and thawing will aid to bring it into condition. And then my

swamp lies so low and absolutely flat that the thaws and rains of Spring

render plowing it in season for Oats, or any other crop that requires

early seeding, a matter of doubt and difficulty. All the land I now

cultivate, or seek to cultivate, has already been well plowed more than

once; no stump or stone impedes progress in the tracts I have plowed

this Fall; yet a good plow, drawn by two strong yoke of oxen, rarely

breaks up half an acre per day; and I estimate two acres per week about

what has been averaged, at a cost of $18 for the plowman and driver;

offsetting the oxen's labor against the work done by the men at the barn

and elsewhere apart from plowing. In other words: I am confident that my

plowing has cost me, from first to last, at least, $10 per acre, and

would have cost still more if it had been done as thoroughly as it

ought. I am quite aware that this is high--that sandy soils and dry

loams are plowed much cheaper; and that farmers who plow wall (with whom

I do not rank those who scratch the earth to a depth of four or five

inches) do it at a much lower rate. Still, I estimate the average cost

in this country of plowing land twelve inches deep at $5 per acre; and

I am confident that it does not cost one cent less.



Nor is cost the only discouragement. There is not half so much nor so

thorough plowing among us, especially in the Fall; as there should be.

The soil is, for a good part of the time, too dry or too wet; the

weather is inclement, or the ground is frozen: so the plow must stand

still. At length, the signs are auspicious; the ground is in just the

right condition; and we would gladly plow ten, twenty, fifty acres

during the brief period wherein it remains so; but this is impossible.

Others want to improve the opportunity as well as we; extra teams are

rarely to be had at any price; and our own slow-moving oxen refuse to be

hurried. Standing half a mile off, you can see them move; if your

eye-sight is keen, and you have some stationary object interposed

whereby to take an observation; but it is as much as ever. If your soil

is such that you can use horses, you get on, of course, much faster; but

all that you gain in breadth you are apt to lose in depth. There may be

spans that will take the plow right along though you sink it to the

beam; but they are sure to be slow travelers. I never knew a span that

would plow an acre per day as I think it should be plowed; though, if

your only object be to get over as much ground as possible, you may

afflict and titillate two acres, or as much more as you please.



Now, I have before me a letter to The Times (London) by Mr. William

Smith, of Woolston, Bucks, who states that he has just harvested his

fifteenth annual crop cultivated by steam-power, and has prepared his

land for the sixteenth; and he gives details, showing that he breaks up

and ridges heavy clay soils at the rate of six acres per day, and plows

lands already in tillage at the rate of fully nine acres per day. He

gives the total cost, (including wear and tear,) of breaking up a foot

deep and ridging 65 acres in September and October in this year, 1870,

at L20 6s. 6d. or about $100 in gold: call it $112 in our greenbacks,

and still it falls considerably below $2 (greenbacks) per acre. Say that

labor and fuel are twice as dear in this country as in England, and this

would make the cost of thoroughly pulverizing by steam-power a heavy

clay soil to a depth of twelve inches less than $4 per acre here. I do

not believe this could be done by animal power at $10 per acre, not

considering the difficulty of getting it thoroughly done at all. Mr.

Smith pertinently says: "Horse-power could not give at any cost such

valuable work as this steam-power ridging and subsoiling is." He tills

166 acres in all, making the cost of steam-plowing his stubble-land 4s.

8-1/2d. per acre (say $1.30 greenback). And he gives this interesting

item:



"No. 5, light land, 12 acres, was ridge-plowed and subsoiled last year

for beans: that operation left the land, after the bean-crop came off,

in so nice a state, that cultivating once over with horses, at a cost of

2s. per acre, was all that was needed this Autumn for wheat next year.

The wheat was drilled four days back."



--Now I am not commending Steam as the best source of power in aid of

Agriculture. I hope we shall be able to do better ere long. I recognize

the enormous waste involved in the movement of an engine, boiler, etc.,

weighing several tons, back and forth across our fields, and apprehend

that it must be difficult to avoid a compression of the soil therefrom.

A stationary engine and boiler at either end of the field, hauling a

gang of plows this way and that by means of ropes and pulleys, must

involve a very heavy outlay for machinery and a considerable cost in its

removal from farm to farm, or even from field to field. Either of these

may be the best device yet perfected; but we are bound to do better in

time.



Precisely how and when the winds which sweep over our fields shall be

employed to pulverize and till the soil, are among the many things I do

not know; but, that the end will yet be achieved, I undoubtingly trust.

I know somewhat--not much--of what has been done and is doing, both in

Europe and America, to extend and diversify the utilization of wind as a

source of power, and to compress and retain it so that the gale which

sweeps over a farm to-night may afford a reserve or fund of power for

its cultivation on the morrow or thereafter. I know a little of what has

been devised and done toward converting and transmitting, through the

medium of compressed air, the power generated by a waterfall--say

Niagara or Minnehaha--so that it may be expended and utilized at a

distance of miles from its source, impelling machinery of all kinds at

half the cost of steam. I know vaguely of what is being done with

Electricity, with an eye to its employment in the production of power,

by means of enginery not a tenth so weighty and cumbrous as that

required for the generation and utilization of Steam, and by means of a

consumption (that is, transformation) of materials not a hundredth part

so bulky and heavy as the water and steam which fill the boilers of our

factories and locomotives. I am no mechanician, and will not even guess

from what source, through what agencies, the new power will be

vouch-safed us which is in time to pulverize our fields to any required

depth with a rapidity, perfection, and economy, not now anticipated by

the great body of our farmers. But my faith in its achievement is

undoubting; and, though I may not live to see it, I predict that there

are readers of this essay who will find the forces abundantly generated

all around us by the spontaneous movement of Wind, Water, and

Electricity--one or more, and probably by all of them--so utilized and

wielded as to lighten immensely the farmer's labor, while quadrupling

its efficiency in producing all by which our Earth ministers to the

sustenance and comfort of man.



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