h a tougher place, then glides
again, and presently there is a pause, and behold the long furrow
with the upturned subsoil is completed. A brief pause, and back it
travels again, this time drawn from the other side, where a twin
monster puffs and pants and belches smoke, while the one that has
done its work uncoils its metal sinews. When the furrows run up and
down a slope, the savage force, the fierce, remorseless energy of
the engine pulling the plough upwards, gives an idea of power which
cannot but impress the mind.

This is what is going on upon one side of the hedge. These engines
cost as much as the fee-simple of a small farm; they consume
expensive coal, and water that on the hills has to be brought long
distances; they require skilled workmen to attend to them, and they
do the work with a thoroughness which leaves little to be desired.
Each puff and pant echoing from the ricks, each shrill whistle
rolling along from hill to hill, proclaims as loudly as iron and
steel can shout, 'Progress! Onwards!' Now step through this gap in
the hedge and see what is going on in the next field.

It is a smaller ground, of irregular shape and uneven surface.
Steam-ploughs mean _plains_ rather than fields--broad, square
expanses of land without awkward corners--and as level as possible,
with mounds that may have been tumuli worked down, rising places
smoothed away, old ditch-like drains filled up, and fairly good
roads. This field may be triangular or some indescribable figure,
with narrow corners where the high hedges come close together, with
deep furrows to carry away the water, rising here and sinking there
into curious hollows, entered by a narrow gateway leading from a
muddy lane where the ruts are a foot deep. The plough is at work
here also, such a plough as was used when the Corn Laws were in
existence, chiefly made of wood--yes, actually wood, in this age of
iron--bound and strengthened with metal, but principally made from
the tree--the tree which furnishes the African savage at this day
with the crooked branch with which to scratch the earth, which
furnished the ancient agriculturists of the Nile Valley with their
primitive implements. It is drawn by dull, patient oxen, plodding
onwards now just as they were depicted upon the tombs and temples,
the graves and worshipping places, of races who had their being
three thousand years ago. Think of the suns that have shone since
then; of the summers and the bronzed grai