THE COMBINE
Times have changed since my boyhood, when an encounter with a 'steam' mill was something to be talked about. Threshing mills were designed by men With the striking speechless of small boys in mind, and to this end was the great engine with polished brass, whirling flywheels and gyrating governors. Alas, such boxes of tricks are rarely encountered On the road now. There is, of course, the combine, as large a piece of equipment as any, but the only thing the combine has in common with the old mill train is the red paint. It lacks a tall stack, has much less sound and fury, and pulls no van with its own in- triguing little trickle of smoke coming from its chim- ney. The combine has bulk and a certain expression of greed, but the 'rural population is used to it and such mammoths as bulldozers, excavators and out- size ploughs. I stopped to allow an 'economy size' combine to negotiate a village street the other day. It had no following of small boys, big as it was. No old men stood with weight on walking sticks as they wondered at the marvels of mechanical science. Their absence someho* made me feel old myself, and a little ashamed to be overawed, even for an instant, by such a tin-can mass, without plume of smoke, deep-chested rumble or ten-foot-high wheels.
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