n waving in the wind, of
the human teeth that have ground that grain, and are now hidden in
the abyss of earth; yet still the oxen plod on, like slow Time
itself, here this day in our land of steam and telegraph. Are not
these striking pictures, remarkable contrasts? On the one side
steam, on the other the oxen of the Egyptians, only a few
thorn-bushes between dividing the nineteenth century B.C. from the
nineteenth century A.D. After these oxen follows an aged man, slow
like themselves, sowing the seed. A basket is at his side, from
which at every stride, regular as machinery, he takes a handful of
that corn round which so many mysteries have gathered from the time
of Ceres to the hallowed words of the great Teacher, taking His
parable from the sower. He throws it with a peculiar _steady_ jerk,
so to say, and the grains, impelled with the exact force and skill,
which can only be attained by long practice, scatter in an even
shower. Listen! On the other side of the hedge the rattle of the
complicated drill resounds as it drops the seed in regular
rows--and, perhaps, manures it at the same time--so that the plants
can be easily thinned out, or the weeds removed, after the magical
influence of the despised clods has brought on the miracle of
vegetation.

These are not extreme and isolated instances; no one will need to
walk far afield to witness similar contrasts. There is a medium
between the two--a third class--an intermediate agriculture. The
pride of this farm is in its horses, its teams of magnificent
animals, sleek and glossy of skin, which the carters spend hours in
feeding lest they should lose their appetites--more hours than ever
they spend in feeding their own children. These noble creatures,
whose walk is power and whose step is strength, work a few hours
daily, stopping early in the afternoon, taking also an ample margin
for lunch. They pull the plough also like the oxen, but it is a
modern implement, of iron, light, and with all the latest
improvements. It is typical of the system itself--half and
half--neither the old oxen nor the new steam, but midway, a
compromise. The fields are small and irregular in shape, but the
hedges are cut, and the mounds partially grubbed and reduced to the
thinnest of banks, the trees thrown, and some draining done. Some
improvements have been adopted, others have been omitted.

Upon those broad acres where the steam-plough was at work, what tons
of artificial manure, super