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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



which power could be communicated. The real power 

 existed in the material upon which those three forces 

 were fed, and in this respect he thought he could show 

 them that the whole question was one of pounds, shil- 

 lings, and pence. They knew very well that a steam- 

 engine could not work unless they gave it coals, and a 

 certain amount of water; ahorse could not work well 

 unless it was well fed ; and a man could not work unless 

 he was properly nourished, because the force existed in 

 the food which these three engines or machines, as they 

 might be called, consumed. They had heard from Mr. 

 Morton of the manner in which these three machines 

 were fed. They knew it was to the interest of those 

 who employed a steam-engine to have an efficient one, 

 and a low-priced engine was a dangerous tool to play with. 

 They knew how proud a man felt of a handsome team of 

 horses, and how well they were fed and attended to. But 

 did they pay that attention to the agaicultural labourer ? 

 Was it not the fact that he did not receive the same 

 amount of attention as the other two sources of power 

 mentioned ? If therefore the man was to be placed in 

 competition with the machine, he ought to receive the 

 same amount of attention as the machine did ; otherwise 

 he was placed at a disadvantage, and he thought it 

 should be the policy of the employer to remunerate the 

 labourer in such a manner as would enable him to get 

 the largest amount of work out of him. He spoke, of 

 course, of physical force — not mental. The mental 

 force required another mode of treatment. Tlie 

 steam-engine could work without horses, but it 

 could not work without the application, not only 

 of a small amount of hand labour, but also of 

 skill. They must, therefore, look upon these three 

 applications of power as the media through which 

 the power was communicated ; the real generator 

 of power was the substance supplied ; and that was the 

 subject of pounds, shillings, and pence — the real question 

 for farmers to consider, for in that their principal in- 

 terest was involved. He had heard, with some surprise, 

 the statement as to the condition of the agricultural 

 labouiersin Wiltshire. With regard to the north it was 

 the fact that a very numerous body of that class of la- 

 bourers, though not exactly on strike, were almost in that 

 state, having had several meetings amongst themselves 

 to discuss these matter.-^. He hoped the good sense of 

 the employers of labour there would come to the res- 

 cue, and lead them to give proper consideration to 

 some strong points which had been brought bei'ore 

 them, though he was no advocate for strikes. In all 

 cases where they set men to hard work — such as that 

 on railways, it had been found that a badly fed man 

 could not exert the power which a well fed man did; 

 and lie thought no one could reasonably expect that a 

 labourer at 8s. a week was capable of doing a full 

 amount of work, so as to be fairly placed in comparison 

 ■with cither a well fed horse or a properly supplied 

 steam engine. 



Mr. Smith (of Woolstone) stated the mode in which 

 he had arrived at some ot the returns furnished by 

 him to the author of the paper, so as to explain any 

 apparent discrepancies between his own and the other 

 returns. He bore testimony to the great value of Mr. 

 Morton's paper. According to the estimates given by 

 Mr. Morton, in which he entirely concurred, the saving 

 of steam-power ovpr manual and horse labour 

 amounted to nearly 50 per cent. ; and, upon the total 

 number of horses at present employed in agriculture, 

 there would be a saving of 300,000, or equal to 

 i£9,000,000 a year, one-half of which would be real 

 gain to the country. If the other half went into the 

 pockets of tlie labourers in the shape of increased pay, it 

 would be a matter of gratification to him ; for lie be- 

 lieved the increased production of the soil under steam 



cultivation would still enable the farmers to secure 

 their profits. 



Mr. S. Sidney thought that the time had scarcely 

 arrived for working out the Chairman's suggestion, and 

 ascertaining the comparative amounts of hand-labour, 

 horse-labour, and steam-labour that could most profit- 

 ably be employed on a farm of given quality and acre- 

 age. Steam cultivation had, within the last two or three 

 years, been brought to the stage of an economical 

 success ; but until Mr. Fowler, Mr. Smith, and others, 

 had fully supplied all the customers who were clamour- 

 ing for steam cultivators, until it was as easy to obtain 

 a steam cultivator as a set of barn machinery, the cal- 

 culation suggested by Mr. Lawes could not be made 

 over a sufficiently wide area to give it any practical 

 value. The high importance of Mr. Morton's paper 

 lay in the fact that he had availed himself of his peculiar 

 advantages, as editor of an established agricultural news- 

 paper, to collect precise facts, showing the present state 

 of British agriculture, and specially in reference to the 

 employment of manual-power, horse-power, and steam- 

 power. Thirty years ago the ratepayers of the kingdom 

 were labouring under perpetual fear lest unemployed 

 unskilled labour should devour in poor rates the whole 

 substance of the land, and under the influence of this 

 terror various expedients were proposed, by men eminent 

 for rank, talent, and literary ability, to increase the 

 amount of manual labour. The horse was to be dis- 

 missed, as working too much and too cheaply, and we 

 were to retrograde to the spade. This was one of the 

 theories of Robert Southey — cottage farms and spade 

 cultivation — and it was supposed that there was a sort 

 of magical influence in the spade, which would, in some 

 mysterious manner, multiply without measure the fer- 

 tility of the soil. A great name in political economy, 

 Mr. John Stuart Mill, who, however, had failed totally 

 whenever he approached practical questions of trade, 

 colonization, and agriculture, had suggested pauper 

 colonies in Ireland, where a number of five-acre farms 

 were to be cultivated with borrowed capital, spades, and 

 hoes. These terrors and these fallacies had past away. 

 Mr. Morton had shown, by facts and figures, what 

 everyone familiar with the agricultural condition of the 

 country knew by common report. Instead of being 

 deluged with labour there was a positive drought. 

 Wages were rising, and farmers were consulting and 

 contriving how to attract and retain the class who, thirty 

 years ago, were treated by the poor law and its adminis- 

 trators as if they were some noxious vermin, whose 

 increase was to be obstructed by every possible means. 

 Mr. Morton had shown by figures, which were rather 

 under than over the mark, that while the system of 

 mechanical and intensive cultivation increased the de- 

 mand for manual labour in those departments where ma- 

 chinery could not be employed had increased also ; 

 that wherever a horse could do a man's work, it was 

 more rapid, more effectual, and consequently cheaper ; 

 and that wherever steam-power could be applied, it was 

 even cheaper compared with horse-labour than horse- 

 labour was when compared with that of man. It must be 

 observed that economy in agricultural operations meant 

 more produce. The exertions of agricultural engineers 

 had destroyed the fallacy of the spade (most valuable in 

 its place) as a means of raising the sustenance of the 

 nation. He (Mr. Sidney) had made a few calculations, 

 for the purpose of giving some idea of how much was 

 gained by the improvements which had brought mecha- 

 nical ability of a high order, and the science of the 

 chemist, to assist in the cultivation of English farms of 

 average size and fertility. Mr. Smith's farm at Wool- 

 ston, in Buckinghamshire, consisted of 110 acres of 

 arable and 70 acres of grass, of good quality. The Labour 

 appeared to be performed by seven men and four boys, 



