Knowledge is power : $b A view of the productive forces of modern society and the results of labor, capital and skill.Knight, Charles
Philosophy
Knowledge is power : $b A view of the productive forces of modern society and the results of labor, capital and skill.
Knight, Charles
Industrial arts; Industries
Gone is the green headland; gone the cowslip bank; gone the pendent
boughs. The furrow runs up to the extremest point of a vast field
without hedges. Gone, too, are the green slips between the lands of
common fields. Their very names of "balk" and "feather" are obsolete.
These adornments of the landscape are inconsistent with the demands of a
population that doubles itself in half a century. The labourer has small
rest, and the soil has less. Under the old husbandry, before the culture
of the green crops, one-third of the arable land was always idle. Two
years of grain-crop, and one year of fallow, was the invariable rule.
Look how the land is worked now. The plough and the harrow turn up and
pulverize the soil, but they do it much more effectually than of old.
The roller is a noble iron instrument, instead of an old pollard. Modern
ingenuity has added the clod-crusher. But something was still wanting
for the better preparation of land for seed--this is the scarifier or
cultivator; which, according to Mr. Pusey, will save one half of the
horse-labour employed upon the plough. Into the details of this saving
it is no part of our purpose to enter.[19] We give a cut of the
implement, covering as much ground in width as 8-1/2 ploughs.
[Illustration: Clod-crusher.]
[Illustration: Scarifier.]
We proceed to "Instruments used in the Cultivation of Crops." Mr. Pusey
tells us that "the sower with his seed-lip has almost vanished from
southern England, driven out by a complicated machine, the drill,
depositing the seed in rows, and drawn by several horses." We miss the
sower; and the next generation may require a commentary upon the many
religious and moral images that arose out of his primitive occupation.
When James Montgomery says of the seed of knowledge, "broadcast it o'er
the land," some may one day ask what "broadcast" means. But the drill
does not only sow the seed; it deposits artificial manures for the
reception of the seed. The bones that were thrown upon the dunghill are
now crushed. The mountains of fertilizing matter that have been
accumulated through ages on islands of the Pacific, from the deposits of
birds resting in their flight upon rocks of that ocean, and which we
call guano, now form a great article of commerce. Superphosphate,
prepared from bones, or from the animal remains of geological ages, is
another of the precious dusts which the drill economizes. There are even
drills for dropping water combined with superphosphate. "Such," says Mr.
Pusey, "is the elastic yet accurate pliability with which, in
agriculture, mechanism has seconded chemistry." The system of
horse-hoeing, which is the great principle of modern husbandry, entirely
depends upon the use of the drill. The horse-hoe cannot be worked unless
the plants are in rows. Such a hoe as this will clean at once nine rows
of wheat, six of beans, and four of turnips. To manage such an
instrument requires "a steady and cool hand." The skilled labourer is as
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account