THE FAilMElVS MAGAZINE. 



llf 



THE FORCES USED IN AGRICULTURE. 

 A PAPER BY MR. J. C. MORTON, 



HEAD AT THE SOCIETY OF ARTS, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 7, 1859, 

 J. BENNETT LA WES, ESa., IN THE CHAIR. 



The three forces to which I shall refer are steam- 

 power, horse-power, and manual labour. Each of them 

 has employment in our present English agriculture, and 

 one object of this paper is to point out the extensive 

 fields open, especially to the first and last of them, in 

 the agriculture of the future. For there are three classes 

 under which all the operations of the farm may be ar- 

 ranged, and they correspond exactly to these three forces 

 which we have at our command. 



In the first, where the greatest uniformity of process 

 obtains, the greatest power is needed, and a purely 

 mechanical force, acting through levers, wheels, and 

 pulleys, is in this way sufficiently under our control for 

 their performance, and this class of operations increases 

 in extent and in importance with almost every permanent 

 improvement of the land, i. e., with everytliing which 

 tends to the uniformity of its condition. In the second 

 class as much force is needed ; but rocky subsoil, 

 awku-ard hedge-rows, crooked roads, and scattered 

 produce, interfere with any possibility of uniform pro- 

 cedure. Some machinery, more pliable than cranks and 

 rods, is needed by which to carry out the purpose of the 

 mind ; and here, therefore, it must work by means of the 

 teachable and powerful horse. This class of operations 

 diminishes in extent and importance v.ith every perma- 

 nent improvement of the soil, i. e.,with every removal 

 of those obstacles to which I have referred. Jn the third 

 class the care and cultivation of individual life, vegetable 

 and animal, are concerned ; no great power is needed, 

 but there is need for the constant and immediate exercise 

 of the will, varying, it may be, at every successive 

 moment; and here, therefore, the human mind can work 

 only by its most perfect instrument— the human hand. 

 It is plain that everything by which on the one hand land 

 is brought to a uniform condition, and by which, on the 

 other, the quantity of its living produce is increased, will 

 extend the first and last of these three fields of agricul- 

 tural operations, and will diminish the necessity of em- 

 ploying horses. 



And this is no mere speculation: it is the principal 

 lesson of the agricultural experience of the past few 

 years. If we knew for several successive years exactly 

 the employment of our agricultural labourers, its nature, 

 its quantity, and its reward on each of the farms which 

 make up the surface of Great Britain ; and if we also 

 knew the quantity and the manner during all these years 

 of the horse-labour of all these farms, its cost per acre 

 and its effect; and if, in addition to all this information, 

 we had the full experience, now very considerable, of the 

 use of steam-power upon the farm, not only for thresh- 

 ing and grinding and cutting, but for cultivating the 

 soil, we should certainly learn from it how rapid has 

 been the extension of those circumstances under which 

 steam cultivation becomes possible, and how perfectly 

 along with it the demand for agricultural labour has been 

 maintained. Such a review of agricultural experience, 

 would, however, teach us more than this, for by a com- 

 parison of the experience of differont farms we should 

 learn the most economical mode of obtaining these 

 powers, and the best way of applying each within the 

 field thus open to it. We should learn how to ensure 



the most economical and efficient condition of our steam 

 engine and its machinery ; we should learn how to obtain 

 the most economic;il and efficient horse labour ; and by 

 so large an experience those circumstances would be 

 pointed out under which the best farm servants are to 

 be procured and retained. 



The forces used in agriculture, thus considered, form, 

 therefore, a very extensive subject, and it is only two or 

 three illustrative remarks under each of these several 

 aspects of it that can be made within the hour. 



In the first place, then, let me attempt a more par- 

 ticular comparison of steam power, horse power, and 

 hand power for the cheap performance of mere labour* 

 In describing steam-engines theterm "horse-power" is 

 used as a unit of force. The power exerted by a horso 

 is assumed, on the authority of experiment, equal to 

 the pull or lift of 33,000 lbs. 1 foot per minute ; and 

 to this agricultural experience agrees, for if a pair of 

 horses draw a plough along with an average pull of 

 300 lbs. at an average rate of 2^ miles per hour, i. e., 

 of 220 feet per minute, it is the same as if those 300 lbs. 

 were pulled over a pulley, i. e., lifted that height in 

 that time, and 300 lbs. lifted 220 feet per minute is 

 just the same as G6,0001bs. lifted 1 foot high per 

 minute, which, as the performance of a pair of horses, 

 is exactly the 33,000 lbs. apiece at which their force is 

 valued by the engineer. Now, it is not on a compari- 

 son merely of the cost of horse power in the animal 

 and in the engine that so great superiority of tbc latter 

 will appear as reglly belongs to it. In addition to this, 

 the performance of which they arc severally caj)able 

 must be taken into account. An ordinary 10-horse 

 power locomotive agricultural engine will, according to 

 the Chester judges of the work done by Fowler's steam 

 plough there, cost in coals, oil and water, and attend- 

 ance, and tear and wear of implement and engine, but 

 excluding interest on capital employed, nearly 45s. 

 a day, or about 4s. 6d. an hour, which is 5|d. per hour 

 for each nominal horse power exerted, but as the real 

 force exerted is more often that of 20 horses in the case 

 of a 10-horse power engine, we must really divide this 

 by 2, and call steam-produced horse power worth 3d. 

 per hour. Now the cost of horse labour on 21 farms 

 in different parts of this country, of which the particu- 

 lars have been kindly given to me, did not exceed 5d. 

 per horse for each of the working hours of the year. 

 Those farms employ 282 horses, and they cost for food, 

 for depreciation of value and saddler's and blacksmith's 

 bills, i:'7,815 ayear; their implements need £870 a 

 year to keep them good ; and the ploughmen and boys 

 employed about them cost £4,241 a year in wages— 

 about £13,000 in all, or i;46 per horse per annum ; 

 and supposing that there are 2,500 working hours in 

 the year, this is rather less than 5d. per horse per hour. 



Besides this, the estimated expense of Fowler's engine 

 was, I believe, excessive, and the nominal power of it 

 was certainly below the actual force at which it could 

 1)0 worked with the estimated quantity of coal con. 

 sumcd; for of 30 engines tried at Cliester only one 

 consumed the 11 lbs. of coal i>cr hour for every horse 

 power produced, which is the consumption named for 



