446 



The Coimtry Gentleman s Magazine 



of symmetry. There can be no doubt but from independent selection. There is there- 

 that the practice of modern breeders differs fore much room for thought in those few re- 

 very much from that of the great founders of marks of Mr Downing's, which it would be 

 the breed. The modern breed from pedi- well for shorthorn breeders to consider and 

 <Tree, the antients, if we may so call them, inwardly digest. 



LORD S ALTO UN ON STEAM CULTIVATION. 



THE operations of the Philorth Steam 

 Cultivation Company were inaugurated 

 lately on the farm of Kirkton, of Philorth, 

 Buchan, occupied by Mr Jas. Burnett. The 

 trial of the implements (Messrs Fowler's) 

 took place under unfavourable conditions. 

 By recent heavy rains, the soil had been 

 thoroughly saturated with moisture ; and to 

 make matters still worse, a great quantity of 

 rain fell on the morning of the trial, which 

 was sufficient of itself to engender fears lest 

 the operations should be a failure. Unfor- 

 tunately, too, a number of socks for the 

 ploughs, and other little necessary articles, 

 which had left Leeds on the Monday night 

 previous, had not come to hand, and some 

 slight inconveniences were caused thereby. 

 The work of the plough and grubber was 

 considered highly satisfactory, however. After 

 the trials, a dinner was held, when 

 Lord Saltoun, in proposing success to the 

 new Company, made the following re- 

 marks : — 



One of the most powerful instruments in 

 the career of progress has been the introduc- 

 tion of steam into agricultural matters ; and I 

 can only say that I am exceedingly proud 

 that my tenantry should have been the first 

 in Aberdeenshire to combine with myself in 

 the introduction of so powerful and eventually 

 so useful an agent as I am sure it will become. 

 We have seen to day, gentlemen, for the first 

 time, the steam plough at work, I think we 

 must all have been struck with the wonderful 

 beauty of the engines, with the accuracy with 

 which they are moved — although, from not 

 knowing the nature of the ground, 

 it was necessary to proceed with great 



caution, and therefore not to work the 

 engines to their full power, but to go slowly 

 with the plough, so that the full power, the 

 full strength and rapidity of the engine, 

 could not be exemplified. Yet in the few 

 contretemps that occurred, from coming in 

 contact with the boulders — and with very 

 heavy boulders as they were — it has to be 

 remarked that no part of the engines gave 

 way. A few of the ploughshares might have 

 been broken, and so on, but these were 

 very trivial things, easy to be repaired. That 

 shews the increase of the science of mechanics 

 within the last few years, because, as I have 

 been informed by some of our friends who 

 have come from Kincardineshire to visit us on 

 this occasion, on the first trial of steam 

 ploughing in Kincardineshire, it was not the 

 shares alone, or any trivial part that gave 

 way, but the engine itself broke down, which 

 might be considered to have a most depressing 

 effect on the idea of the future success of 

 the engine. In our case, we have nothing to 

 complain of but these few trivial accidents, 

 and I am rather glad that these few trivial 

 accidents did occur. I am rather glad that 

 we were engaged to-day in trying the engine 

 upon ground like that field of our friend Mr 

 Burnett's, which contained those large 

 boulder stones, because it enabled the 

 guiders of the engine and those who worked 

 the engine to shew with what ease these 

 trifling difiiculties were surmounted, and of 

 what little iinportance they were, compared 

 with the strength and power, and good work- 

 ing of the engines themselves. Gentlemen, 

 it is not for me — in fact it is not within my 

 power or my capacity, to expatiate on all the 



