118 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZIiNE. 



Fowler's engine, and tlic majority did not consume 

 more than 6 to 8 lbs. during tliat time. 



A horse at plough with an average length of 120 

 yards of furrow loses one-third of his time on the head- 

 land in the mere act of turning the i)]ough. At the 

 dung-cart not one-third of his time is employed in the 

 actual conveyance of the load, two-thirds arc lost 

 standing at the heap and in the field and returning 

 with the empty cart. Or rather let me say this loss of 

 time is a necessary part of his employment, however 

 he may be engaged. He can pull 33,000 lbs. 1 foot 

 high in a minute, but he cannot keep that performance 

 up for 10 hours at a time. 



On six farms the details of which I have so ascer- 

 tained as that all the ploughing, scarifying, harrowing, 

 rolling, horse-hoeing, carting — all the horse labour in 

 fact on each — is converted into lbs. lifted so many feet 

 per minute throughout the working year, I find that 

 the actual performance per hour through the year is 

 not 33,000 lbs. lifted 1 foot per minute, but more 

 nearly one-half that quantity, varying from 14,000 lbs. 

 in the lowest case, to 19,000 lbs. in the highest. 



No doubt, even in the case of steam power, there 

 must be periods of waste labour — ploughs must be 

 turned upon the headland even if it be dene by steam ; 

 but these occasional periods Of comparatively fruitless 

 work are no necessary condition of steam power; it is 

 better if maintained continuously, and machinery will 

 be invented to reduce this waste time to a minimum 

 with a positive advantage to the efficiency of the engine. 

 Whereas in horse labour, the waste time is necessary 

 for the maintenance of the power itself. And it is 

 plain that, along witli the 5d. per hour fur every horse, 

 which on the average it may cost, there has to be taken 

 into account a performance on the average of the year 

 of only 19,000 lbs. lifted by it 1 foot high per minute 

 as its best result; whereas in tlic case of the steam- 

 engine its 3d. per horse per hour has to be taken 

 along with nearly twice as large a i)erforraance as its 

 best result. 



And the relative cost of the two forces is affected not 

 only by the question of time during which each can be 

 continuously maintained, but also by -the quality of the 

 performance of which each is capable. In thrashing, 

 unUbrmity of speed is a condition of good work ; it is 

 more easily maintained by steam power than by horses. 

 In ploughing, the avoidance of trampling and of pi-es- 

 sure generally is almost a condition of good work ; it 

 is more easily obtained by steam-drawn machinery for 

 the purpose. But to this I shall recur. 



Let us now estimate the cost of manual labour en- 

 gaged in what I call mere work, i. e., where the least 

 degree of skill is called for. I have four facts in illus- 

 tration of this point : 



1st. A man will dig 8 perches of land, or say 2,000 

 square feet, nearly a foot deep, in a day. In doing so 

 he lifts probably three-quarters of it through at least 

 a foot in height, that is to say, he lifts 1,500 cubic feet, 

 weighing at least 150,000 lbs., 1 foot high in 10 hours' 

 time, and to do it therefore he must maintain upon the 

 average a lift of 250 lbs. per minute all that time. Of 

 course, in addition to the mere lift, there is the labour 

 of cutting off this earth from the firm ground to which 

 it was attached. In my second case, then, this portion 

 of his labour is very much reduced. 2nd. Three men 

 will lift — I have often paid them for doing it — 100 

 cubic yards of farmyard dung, and fill into carts in 

 10 hours' time. The 33 cubic yards which fall to each 

 man's share, or about 14cwt. apiece, weigh 50,000 lbs., 

 and this is lifted over the hedge of the cart, or 4 feet 

 high— equal to 200,000 lbs. lilted daily 1 foot hi<;h, or 

 330 lbs. per minute. This is one-fourth more than in 

 the last case. Now take one where there is no labour 



in detaching the weight from any previous connection- 

 3rd. A man will pitch in an hour's time — I have often 

 seen him do it — an acre of a good crop, tied in sheaves, 

 to an average height of full 6 feet, on the cart or wag- 

 gon. Straw and corn together, such a crop will weigh 

 more than 2 tons, say 5,000 lbs. In doing this he 

 therefore lifts 300,000 lbs. 1 foot high in 10 hours' 

 tiaie, or 500 lbs. per minute. 4th. My fourth case is 

 of much the same kind. One man and five boys, or 

 women, equal as regards wages — and I will therefore 

 assume equal as regards power to three men — will 

 throw into carts upon an average, of swedes and man- 

 gel w urztls, 3 acres of a good crop, say 70 tons in all, 

 in a day of 9 hours' length. They lift, then, 150,000 

 lbs. 4 feet, being, say 600,000 lbs. 1 foot; being 

 200,000 lbs. apiec'c in 9 hours' time, or about 370 lbs. 

 a minute. 



These four cases indicate the mere force of a man, 

 then, at a cost of, say 3d. an hour, as equal to a lift of 

 250, .330, 500, and 370 lbs. per minute ; the two 

 former being cases where the load has to be detached 

 as well as lifted, and the third being performed under 

 the influence of good harvest fare. 



But now compare this, even in the best case, with 

 the duty of a steam engine, or 33,0001bs. 1 foot high 

 per minute for 3d. an hour, and compare it with the 

 actual average performance of the horse, lC,0001bs. 

 lifted 1 foot per minute for 6d. an hour. In order, at 

 the best rate named, to do the work of the steam- 

 engine, GO men would be required, at a cost, not of 3d., 

 but of more than 15s. per hour; and in order to do 

 the work of the horse 32 men would be needed, at a 

 cost of 8s., instead of 5d,, an hour. It is plain that if 

 we can take much of the mere labour of the farm out 

 of the hands of the labourer, and put it into the hands 

 of steam power for its performance, there is an enor- 

 mous amount of saving to be made in the cost of agri- 

 cultural production. It is plain that it is meie folly 

 in the labourer to think that, as regards the mere 

 labourof the land, he can compete with either steam- 

 power or horse-power. Strength of body is desirable, 

 and sinew hardened by long practice in hard labour 

 has a considerable marketable value ; for that, how- 

 ever hardly it may sound, is the aspect of the matter 

 in which the interests of the labourer most directly ap- 

 pear; but it is plain that for sheer lilt and the mere 

 putting forth of force, horse-power, and still more 

 that of untiring steam, must grind the soul out of any- 

 body that shall pretend to competition with them. It 

 is in the cultivation, not so much of mere strength of 

 body as of skill and intelligence, that the safety of the 

 labourer lies, and in his capability of education he is 

 perfectly secure. 



As the matter at present stands, then, and confining 

 ourselves to that large and increasing class of operations 

 in which the power required is great and the process 

 almost uniform, and looking only to the cost per unit 

 of work done, wc have seen that steam-power stands 

 decidedly first in the race ; horse-power is a tolerably 

 good second, and the agricultural labourer is litv rally 

 nowhere. There are, however, two considerations 

 which greatly affect the positi<u of horse-power in 

 this competition, and place it much further back than 

 it would at present seem to be. They botli affect its 

 fitness for those acts of cultivation where it is plain that 

 there is the greatest room for an extended use of steam- 

 power. I refer, first, to the injury done to the land 

 by the trampling of draught animals; and secondly to 

 that irregularity of employment on the farm for horses 

 during the year, which in effect makes you keep upon 

 a large farm several horses all the year round for the 

 sake of their work during a few weeks of spring and 

 autumn. If a steam-engine, which costs nothing when 



