Profitable Employ uicnt of Agrktilinral j\Iachiiicry 



521 



saving machine, for, with a horse and boy, 

 it can be made to supply the place of eight 

 or ten women. 



The summer work amongst the turnips 

 differs litde if anything from that generally 

 practised. We find that they cannot easily 

 get too much work between the drills with 

 the various horse-hoes or scarifiers. In the 

 autumn the turnips are pulled and taken clean 

 off the land excepting the tops, which are 

 generally ploughed in as manure. To fold 

 sheep on our cold clays and poach them 

 does an irreparable injury. If, by reason of 

 previous rains, the land is too soft to carry 

 the carts in leading off the crop, the roots 

 are run off" to the gate or headlands with a port- 

 able railway. This adds to the expense of 

 lifting the crop, but it is more than counter- 

 balanced by avoiding injury to the land, 

 which is generally seeded in the month of 

 November with wheat. So great is the injury 

 done to clay land by injudicious carting upon 

 it, that the bad effects are very visible in 

 some instances over a longer period than a 

 rotation of five years. 



But to return to the steam-plough, its value 

 was very apparent to the most casual observer 

 in the droughty autumn of 1865. In that 

 year, after all harvest operations were con- 

 cluded, the stubbles were so hard and dry 

 that many farmers were compelled to wait for 

 rain before they could be ploughed by horses, 

 whereas we got to work at once with the 

 steam-plough, and had a large breadth broken 

 up in the most efficient manner, and the 

 result was equally apparent in the crop of 

 turnips — double the weight per acre on 

 similar land in the neighbourhood ploughed 

 with horses. 



Laying Down Land to Permanent Pasture, 

 —A large breadth of the strongest clays have 

 been sown away to permanent jDasture with- 

 out an accompanying grain crop, and in pre- 

 paring the land the steam-plough has been 

 of the greatest service. Our practice is to 

 take an oat stubble, and drain it thoroughly, 

 the depth and distance of the drains being 

 respectively4 feet deep and 1 8 feet apart. It is 

 then broken up Avith the steam-plough, and 

 afterwards subjected to a summer-fallowing, 



during which time it is cultivated with the 

 steam-plough, cultivator, and harrows, and 

 when thoroughly pulverized it receives a 

 heavy liming. The lime is covered in with 

 the diggers, or cultivators, or both ; and when 

 it is thoroughly intermixed with the soil, the 

 field is left in this state over the winter. In 

 the month of April the mixture of grasses is 

 sown, the land receiving at the same time a 

 good top-dressing of rape dust. No depart- 

 ment of farm and estate management has 

 excited our admiration more than the results 

 attained by this system. 



The Cost of Steam-Ploughing.— ^oi having 

 kept any account or journal of the work done 

 by the steam-plough generally, we are not 

 able to give a correct estimate of its cost in 

 detail. On several occasions, however, we 

 have made calculations of the cost of plough- 

 ing different fields, as well as carefully mea- 

 sured each day's work, and made an estimate 

 accordingly. One instance taken from the 

 writer's note-book, dated 31st March 1863, 

 will suffice :— " Estimated cost of ploughing 

 field, No. 10 on the plan, measuring 11 acres 

 I rood 36 poles, not including removals, = 

 4s. lod. per imperial acre. Estimated cost 

 of ploughing theabovefield ///r/z/r////^ removals, 

 a distance from another farm of about three 

 miles, but not including removal hence, which 

 we would propose to debit to the field whither 

 next removed, ^ 6s. 3d. per acre." 



The highest day's work (nine hours per 

 day) performed in this field was 4^ acres, 

 or at a cost of about 4s. 6d. per acre. We 

 estimate the cost thus :— Engineman, one 

 day, 3s. ; ploughman do., 2s. 6d. ; anchor- 

 man do., 2s. 4d. ; two porter boys at is. 

 each, 2s. ; boy, with horse and water cart, 

 4s. ; coals or coke, say 3s. ; oil, is.; interest 

 on capital, say 6d. per acre, 2s. 3d. ; total, 

 ^i,os. id.; or about 4s. 6d. per imperial acre. 



The wages stated have all been increased 

 fully IS. per week for men since 1863. 

 The above was work done with the two-fur- 

 row plough. We have had many instances 

 where the v/ork has cost a good deal more 

 per acre, and in some a good deal less, but 

 the above we consider a fair average under 

 favourable circumstances a,s to situation and 



