120 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



immediately around it, and its treatment during growth 

 according to its condition, must be left to the hand. 

 When ripe it may be harvested by horse-drawn imple- 

 ments: our corn crops are reaped, our potatoes may be 

 dug, and roots cut from the ground by horse-drawn ma- 

 chines—they must however be gathered into bundles or 

 heaps, and ultimately removed by the help of manual 

 labour. 



When stored they are threshed, and ground, and cut, and 

 steamed by steam-driven engines, but they must be admi- 

 nistered as food by manual labour. Leaving the vegetable, 

 which, even when living, may be treated to some extent 

 by machinery, and when no longer grovving becomes at 

 once the subject of steaii) -driven processes, we come to 

 the treatment of the animal which it feeds, and here we 

 leave altogether the region of machinery actuated by 

 steam, and are confined to the hand, directed by intelli- 

 gence. 



Is it not a remarkable thing, however, that agricul- 

 ture, which was once wholly the work of men's hands, 

 but which has long since given up the tillage of the soil, 

 and the carriage of the manure, and the sowing of the 

 seed, and three-fourths of the hoeing of the crops to be 

 accomplished by the horse — which has lately given up 

 the threshing of the grain and the cutting of its straw to 

 be effected by steam-power — which is' rapidly abandon- 

 ing the work of reaping to the former and of cultivation 

 to the latter — should nevertheless require more labourer 

 than ever ? — that steam being first, and horse-power 

 second, and the agricultural labourer nowhere in the 

 race, considering the three merely as economical produ- 

 cers of power, the last should neveitheless be wanted 

 more than ever ? 



The explanation lies in this : that agriculture is more 

 and more becoming the work of intelligence and skill 

 as well as power — those parts of its processes, where in- 

 telligence and skill are wanted, are becoming a larger 

 portion of the whole. Cultivation is more perfectly 

 performed, and over a greater extent of land — the 

 crops cultivated require more labour and are more pro- 

 ductive — the stock consuming them is proportionally 

 larger and needs proportional attendance. Probably 

 each acre cultivated in 1759 employed more manual 

 labour in its cultivation then than each acre cultivatad 

 now ; but how many more acres are there under culti- 

 vation now than then ? Each bushel of wheat grown 

 half a century ago involved so much more labour then, 

 that 8s. was the lowest price at which it could be grown 

 with profit ; but how many more bushels per acre does 

 land upon an average yield at present ? Each pound of 

 beef and mutton cost more in wages 33 years ago than 

 now ; but we have a double and triple store of food for 

 stock ; we have two crops of fattened sheep and cattle 

 where formerly we had one, and each supplies a double 

 quantity of meat. 



But, whatever the explanation be, the fact is certain, 

 that the use of steam-power on a farm is a part of that 

 system which employs roost labourers in agriculture. 

 Mr. William Smith, of Woolston, who has an 8-horse 

 engine for 110 acres of arable land and 70 acres of pas- 

 ture, and works this engine only 14 days a year in 

 cultivation, and not more in threshing, employs regu- 

 larly throughout the year seven men and four boys, 

 equal to nine men upon the whole, or one to every 

 12 acres of arable land and 8 of grass — " more than any 

 farmer in the neighbourhood employs." His steam 

 cultivation, be tells me, costs liim, on the average, 10s. 

 lOd. annually per acre on his clays, and 8s. 3d, an- 

 nually per acre on his lighter soil. It has dis- 

 placed exactly the two-fifths of the former horse-power 

 which I had anticipated that it would ; and he tsays that 

 70 per cent, of the cost of engine-work is manual 

 labour, and only 30 per cent, engine-food, while of the 



horse-work displaced only 20 per cent, is manual la- 

 bour, and 80 per cent, is horse-food. 



Mr. Pocock, who farms 300 arable acres and 300 

 acres of grass-land, near Farringdon, employs regularly 

 22 men eight women, and ten boys, equal to 30 men in 

 all, or one for every ten acres of arable and ten acres of 

 grass. He, too, uses steam-power for thrashing, grind- 

 ing, and cutting, and employs one of Fowler's steam- 

 ploughs. 



Another gentleman, occupying 410 arable and 190 

 pasture acres, on the fat land below the chalk hills of 

 Wiltshire, and who does all his cultivation by steam, 

 says : 



"S;eam cultivation will lessen horse-labour, I think, one- 

 half, and in some cases two-thirds. A neighbour of mine, 

 who has a steam plough, told me that he usually kept 18 or 

 20 horses : he now hoped to do with six. Another, who oc- 

 cupies about 2,000 acres of arable and pasture, hopes to do 

 with 13 horses. My own inapression is, tiiat there will be 

 more manual labour required where steam culture is adopted, 

 and that a more energetic class of men will obtain higher 

 wsgea." 



Mr. Randall, of Chadbury, near Evesham, who cul- 

 tivates 500 acres arable and 200 acres of pasture, em- 

 ploys, with slight variation, 30 men, seven women, and 

 12 boys throughout the year, with 70 additional men 

 for three weeks iil harvest-time — in all, equal to about 

 42 men regularly throughout the year, or one to every 

 12 acres of arable land and five of pasture. He too 

 uses a steam cultivator, and says steam cultivation 

 makes no difference in the manual labour needed on the 

 land. All these, more or less, are instances of the cul- 

 tivation of clay land, on which, if by force of character 

 labour-giving crops are cultivated, of course the labour 

 of cultivation must be greater than on lighter soils. It 

 is these lighter soils, however, generally, which are de- 

 voted more especially to the growl h of what are called 

 fallow crops ; and, taking the ordinary rotation on each 

 class of soils into account, we may, therefore, fairly 

 compare the experience of the steam-cultivated farms, 

 as to the labour they require, with the labour-bills of 

 other farms, though not quite so heavy. This " one 

 man to every ten or twelve acres of arable land, and 

 eight to ten acres of grass," deducting 10s. per acre for 

 the latter, is equal to a labour-bill of 50s. per acre per 

 annum on the plough-land ; and it is unnecessary to say 

 that this is a very unusual amount. 



On a number of farms in Gloucestershire, whose ma- 

 nagement I examined many years ago, where the pasture 

 formed from one-tenth to five-tenths of the whole, the 

 labour-bill reached 50s. per acre very rarely indeed. It 

 was more generally between 30s. and 40s. 



On a fen farm near Spalding, of v;hich a most elabo- 

 rate account of the labour used upon it has been kindly 

 given me by the tenant, Mr. Aitken, I find that on 790 

 acres almost wholly arable, the actual wages paid had 

 during the last three years averaged £1,260, or about 

 32s. an acre. On another similar farm, near Chatteris, 

 on 900 acres arable and 120 pasture, the last year's 

 wages were £''1,556, which is about 353. per acre on the 

 arable. 



On one of the crack farms of East Lothian, of 630 

 acres wholly arable, 22 men are kept regularly, and 35 

 lads and women, besides 25 or 30 people for three or 

 four weeks in harvest ; and the wages, therefore, must 

 be about £■'1,200— not £2 an acre — though potatoes, 

 one of the crops requiring most labour, are very largely 

 cultivated. 



The wages on the College farm, near Cirencester, of 

 400 acres arable and 10 pasture, are £700 a-year, or 

 30s. an acre on the plough land. Mr. Stratton's farm, 

 Manningford, Bruce, near Pewsey, Wilts, 590 acres 

 arable, 65 acres pasture, and 160 down, costs about 



