The two main farms, Talbothays and Flintcomb-Ash, represent the best and worst of farm life. The farm is the only world that Tess knows. She never travels more than 50 miles from her place of birth. The whole of the work is rurally set, and with the level of detail, we can see Hardy's intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a nineteenth-century farm.
Little evidence of machinery invades the novel and the main form of transportation is either the horse or the horse cart. Draft animals are necessary for survival and prosperity; we see evidence of Prince's death and the effect his passing has on the Durbeyfields. A new horse is very important to the existence of the family. The entire series of chapters that follow Prince's death, with Tess going to The Slopes, is based on the economic need for a horse. Only twice do we see "modern" machines in the novel, the train delivering the Talbothays milk to London and the threshing machine used at Flintcomb-Ash. Otherwise, modern farming equipment is not a key component of farming techniques practiced in Wessex.
However, the machine at Flintcomb-Ash is like a monster that must be fed and maintained. We see evidence of this in Chapter 47; "the engine which was to act as the primum mobile of this world" and "it was the engine-man." Thus, the machine is an omnipotent presence, demanding to be tended to at all times. The workers have lost their identity and their ability to communicate when the machine is working at full tilt. Contrast this machine, which seems difficult to control, with the pastoral workings of the dairy at Talbothays. This is not to say that the dairy is without modern machinery; it has modern butter churns, powered by hand and horsepower, but nothing like the steam threshing machine.
