THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



155 



improvements : especially, I am glad that you have had tlie 

 opportunity of witnessing that most extraordinary exhibition 

 of the steam-ploughs at work. Now, gentlemen, far be it from 

 me to advise you to buy a steam-plough ; but T will say this, 

 that they arc practically used in almost all parts of England, 

 and I believe a day will come when we shall liave them 

 employed everywhere — when they will be so much improved 

 that we shall see them in common use even in this county. 

 I want to give you a very few figures, with reference to this 

 subject, wliich you may take home with you, and turn over iu 

 your minds at your leisure. T will give you the outline of cal- 

 culations that have been made of the costof the steam-plough 

 compared with the ordinary plough. For their accuracy I 

 do not pledge myself; but I think they will be found pretty 

 correct. 'I'he first outlay certainly appears a very large one. 

 The apparatus will cost from £500 to £750, according to 

 the plough you use, or the manufactory you have it from. 

 The annual expense of working the steam plough, including 

 wear and tear, and interest for the money, would be between 

 £400 and £440. Another calculation puts the saving effected 

 by the introduction of a steam plough on a farm of 400 

 acres at cost of eight horses, £280, and the expense of their 

 keep anmially, £330. This would be a partial set off to 

 the cost of a steam-plough ; but still by this calculation — 

 for which I am in no degree responsible — it would appear 

 that the cost of ploughing by steam is greater than by 

 horses. On the other hand, there are persons whose state- 

 ments are entitled to every consideration, who maintain the 

 reverse. At'any rate, the owner of the steam-plough pos- 

 sesses this great advantage — he is enabled to complete his 

 operations m a much shorter space of time, and I need not 

 tell you that this is frequently a matter of the first import- 

 ance. 



Lord Berneks gave, " The Mayor and Corporation," and 

 in doing so said : If the show-yard was not so full as it has 

 been on previous occasions, I never saw a public dinner at- 

 tended by a more heatty company than that now before 

 me. I hope the district of East Kent will derive aa 

 much benefit from the visit of the Society as other districts 

 have done, and that the breed of Romney Marsh sheep may, 

 before long, begin to show symptoms of improvement (laugh- 

 ter) — something more nearly approaching to the Shropshire 

 aud Southdown breeds than they are at present. Before sit- 

 ting down, I should like to mention one fact of some little 

 interebt, when taken in connection with the disease among 

 sheep which prevailed last winter. Any member of this So- 

 ciety has the advantage of communicating with its veterinary 

 surgeon, in case of a disease breaking out iu his neighbour- 

 hood among the cattle; and if the malady is of sufficient im- 

 portance, the surgeon — a very able and experienced officer — 

 IS authorized to attend and give his advice. I know that in 

 my own district, last winter, there was a terrible mortality 

 among sheep, which I really believed might have been almost 

 entirely prevented, if the veterinary surgeon of the Society 

 had been asked down. Not less than 15,000 sheep tiied 

 withia an area often miles ; whereas in another district, which 

 our surgeon attended, the mortaUty did not exceed three in 

 every hundred. 



The Mayor having becomingly responded, 



The Dean proposed the " Labouring Classes." He said : 

 I mean not with any studied effort to recommend this toast 

 to your favour, for I am speaking to many hundreds here 

 whose interest in the welfare of the working classes 

 has been unmistakably shown by their doing what they could 

 to improve their condition, to raise them in the scale of so- 

 ciety, and to fit them for a better discbarge of their duties here 

 and a firmer hope in happiness hereafter. A toast is some- 

 times called the toast of the evening. In some sense or other 

 I think that every toast is such. We have already drunk, and 

 done, I hope, full justice to what, locally and properly speak- 

 ing, is the toast of the evening, I mean that of success to the 

 Royal Agricultural Society. But, in solemn depth of mean- 

 ing, iu real intrinsic importance, the toast of the evening is 

 surely that which I am about to propose, " The Labouring 

 Clisses." They are the broad basis upon which our national 

 prosperity and our national happiness must rest ; they are the 

 main support iu which every great nitellectual or moral move- 

 ment must find its strength and its stability ; they are the 

 classes whose condition, character, and conduct must stamp 

 the age in which we live with its broadest features. And there 



are circumstancea now passing around us that may give con- 

 fidence and courage to all who are engaged iu working for the 

 good of the labouring classes. I have alluded, in another 

 place, to this subject ; but that was not the place for compli- 

 ments; they soucd strangely in the pulpit. This is the time 

 for them. Sometimes speeches made on occasions of this 

 kind are called contemptuously " after-dinner speeches," but 

 I have always felt that they enable us to say many welcome 

 truths which cannot elsewhere or otherwise be said. The im- 

 provement that has taken place in the labouring class cannot 

 be denied. It is to be found in all the ranks of that innu- 

 merable army ; in those whose march is in the furrowed soil, 

 whose home is in the glebe, as well as in those who toil at the 

 forge or devise and carry out those wonderful machiues which 

 we have seen to-day. One great benefit of modern improve- 

 ments is the tendency to unite in the same workman the 

 knowledge of different trades. The division of labour confiues 

 a man to a particular branch of a trsde ; the concentration of 

 labour that these inventions aim at, and often attain, has pre- 

 cisely the opposite effect. For instance, agricultural servants 

 will no longer be able to live in ignorance of machinery ; 

 every farm labourer will be soon also something of a machinist. 

 We have heard from competent authorities that men of busi- 

 ness become soldiers with little trouble and in ahoit time. So 

 I believe we shall find that agricultural labourera will become 

 machinists. It is also worthy of observation, iu the present 

 days, that a desirable end may often be brought about by a 

 movement altogether dissimilar in character, and started with 

 a wholly different object. For instance, some time ago au 

 efi'ort was made to procure a Saturday half-holiday for the la- 

 bouring classes generally. Meetings were held and prize 

 essays invited. While I with ethers was looking them over, 

 and endeavouring in this round-about way to arrive at ovir 

 object, the Volunteer force sprang into existence, and with it 

 the half-hohday, which they readily obtained, in order that 

 they might grow perfect in their drill. Thus, what we had 

 been striving after so long, with little chance of complete or 

 speedy success, was in a moment obtained by means of the 

 Volunteer movement. And so in other cases we shall find 

 that the success of one project gives unexpected assistance to 

 some other undertaking wholly dissimilar to that from which 

 it derives the advantage. 



Mr. Dyke Acland said : I rise to return thanks on behalf 

 of the labouring classes, and also to be your humble mouth- 

 piece, in proposing the toast of "Agriculture, Manufactures, 

 and Commerce." As one of the original members of this So- 

 ciety, I have, perhaps, been selected for the task of giving you 

 this toast. Much has been said about Kent being a corner 

 of England, and the inconveniences resulting from this posi- 

 tion. But are we not, I would ask, close to the highway that 

 leads to some of the most civilized countries in the world ? 

 Do I not see round these tables many distinguished foreigners, 

 Frenchmen and Spaniards, who have corae to Canterbury be- 

 cause of proximity to the continent; They have come to see, 

 not merely what the men of Kent can do, but also what the 

 whole labouring class of England can do. We know that 

 agriculture represents the permanence of England, and manu- 

 factures her progress ; and we know how to unite the two : 

 first, by meeting together, as we have met this day ; secondly, 

 because we meet as free men ; thirdly, because we know that 

 our great institutions can only flourish by the cultivation of the 

 arts and sciences. This Society is pre-eminently a peace so- 

 ciety, and its interests are all bound up with the preservation 

 of peace. Its object— as one of its founders used to say— is 

 not to teach England— that he would never presume to do, 

 but to make England teach herself, by bringiug each part of 

 her into acquaintance with what the other parts could do. I 

 believe that each district has some peculiar practice, which con- 

 tains a hidden merit ; here, for instance, you have the Kent 

 plough. 1 know that when an Englishman finds out a good 

 thing it is extremely difllicult to get him to give it up, so I 

 suppose there must be something in this Kent plough r.ot yet 

 found out by all of us. 



Sir Brook Bkidces proposed "The Railway Companies, 

 and thanks to them for their co-operation in promoting the ob- 

 jects of the Society." I wish heartily that I could congratulate 

 the Society upon this being the most successful meeting they 

 had ever held ; but, unfortunately, I cannot do so, because it 

 would cot be the fact. Yet this I will say, that if the first oh- 



L 2 



