and fork, has a model farm of his own down
in the north, and is not here for nothing.
These young men, who group round one of
their companions lying on the grass, and
look so much at home among the wheat, are
first cousins of Young Agriculture at the
least. One of them has invented a subsoil
drainage plough. Give him an order, go to
bed, and you will find drain pipes laid under
your land next morning as cleverly as though
the fairies had been working for you. You
may detect cautious old farmers taking this
near relation of Young Agriculture by the
button, and whispering ideas of contracts in
his ear. Others are godfathers or parents to
reaping machines. Three kinds of reaping
machines stand here ready for action. The
Farmer of Tiptree gives the word, the
company of visitors form into a line along the
path, some recklessly drive in among the
grain to get a better view, the word is given,
and Crosskill's machine charges the standing
corn. The horses steadily advance, and as
they pass we see the corn falling in sheaves,
which a man forms with a rake as they
fall, the crowd closes in and follows the
machine over the clean stubble; a long
strip of growing wheat is in a few minutes
laid in sheaves, and the smooth surface of
remaining stubble is declared by practised
eyes to be superior to anything that they
had ever seen upon a field that had been
cut by sickle.

When thrashing machines were introduced,
the farmers said that straw was damaged by
them, and that they never could be generally
used. Few large farmers now thrash by flail.
Reaping machines, let him croak who will,
must follow. Here follows one already,
McCormick's upon Crosskill's. Form line
again, and gentlemen who run into the corn
be generalled, and understand that treading
the wheat down before the path of the
machine, gives a bad chance to the inventor.
No matter! The corn falls, and a revolving
wheel doing the work that was done by the
rake just now, the labour of the man is
confined to the placing of each sheaf on one
side. There is a comparing of stubbles: Crosskill's
machine is said by some to leave the
best stubble, and McCormick's to deposit
most advantageously the fallen corn. No
matter! Here comes Hussey's as improved
by Garrett. Each machine is to have two
trials, and the Farmer of Tiptree Hall is
enthusiastically urging them to charge into
his immature crops, caring more for the
ripening of agricultural ideas than for the
ripening of an acre or two of his corn. Which
is the best machine we are unable to say, the
present best no doubt will in due time be
bettered. With one of the machines as they
are now made, two men and two horses can
reap fifteen acres in a day. For the comfort
of any one who wishes to see Young Agriculture
prospering, we are glad to add that from
one maker alone there have already issued
six hundred of these machines, which will be
at work during the approaching harvest, and
that they are now being issued from the
same manufactory at the rate of about six a
day.

One of the reaping machines is next put to
the severe test of mowing clover in a field
that has been for some weeks overrun by
sheep,—that is Hussey's (Garrett's edition);
its cutting edge has been so much improved,
that the machine trots round the field, along
or across deep furrows, in all manner of
directions, followed by a train of triumphing
admirers. We enter into many conversations,
sitting in the sun, with half the company who
are now lagging among these machines; but
whether Garrett's Hussey, Crosskill, or
McCormick was the favourite machine, we
are unable fairly to discover; each has its
good points and its knot of true believers.
It is pleasant work to do nothing now that
the heat of afternoon is come upon us, nothing
but sit on a machine and see a line of active
men, some using their umbrellas now as
parasols, trailing off in the distance following
the indefatigable Tiptree marshal to review
his pigs. We are too lazy to go to pigs, but
it pleases our laziness to see these people
travelling like a black train of ants by the
ditch side; to hear the engine puffing, to
watch the fertilising fountains playing in the
distance like small waterspouts, such spouts
as possibly might indicate a whale at sea. It
is pleasant to look at the old, battered farm
labourer, who is telling his experience and
praising these new clays which, whatever they
may do for the soil, do much more for the
labourer. He tells of cheerful oversight and
willing labour, of wholesome cottages, and of
such matters; he envies neither ox nor pig.
What good work might a clever farmer do
when seconded with healthy, well-instructed
labourers, who have intelligence enough to
drop the fatness of a little sense upon the
soil? We know, however, that such labourers
belong rather to Young Agriculture than to
old. In the district occupied by Tiptree
Hall, the farmers, we are told, raise for the
improvement of their roads—and they are
bad enough—a rate of threepence in the
pound; but for the improvement of their
reason, they refuse to pay more than three-
farthings, which yields on the whole fifteen
pounds a year, for the establishment of schools
and the providing a fit education for the
labourers throughout the parish.

It is time now, however, to shake off dull
sloth and join the caravan, which may be
discerned winding in the distance through a
field of mangold-wurzel.

We effect a junction with the troop, which
represents no longer the main body of the
invaders of Essex, in a cabbage field; here
we are told great things of the prosperous
state of the mangold-wurzel, through whose
country the caravan had lately passed. One
half of the farm on Tiptree Hill yields grain,