THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



167 



beef production profitabk', even when the resulting manure 

 goes to strengthen the corn crop ; and how is he, then, to 

 grow meat alone without grain, unless, indeed, the fields be 

 laid again to pastures and grazing ? No one can couusel such 

 a course as supplautiug our labouring population with oxen 

 and sheep, while the soil beneath us is full of crops and in- 

 finitely more prolific in food for cattle and labour for men than 

 a mere superficies of herbage could be. It is, indeed, a question 

 whether the old tillage-husbandry of England — grain-cropping 

 alternated, balanced, and supported by periodical rests or 

 naked fallows — would not be more profitable (with a modifica- 

 tion of the Tullian intercultural tillage between the rows of 

 growing crops) than our p/esent system of raising grain by 

 manure made in the conversion of straw and other produce by 

 unecouomical stock. But whether the newhusbaudry for strong 

 lands will partake of this character or not, here comes in the 

 steam plough, supplies the means of omni-culture for which 

 we are in distress, relieves our soil from the untold injury of 

 the kneading and pugging feet of the team, cultivates when- 

 ever and as much as we choose, and blesses the clays with the 

 perfection of garden manipulation and culture in the growth 

 of the usual farm crops. 



We have seen many examples of the transformation in clay 

 husbandry wrought by the agency of steam culture, but none 

 more marked than the operations of Mr. Smith, of Woolston, 

 the well-known inventor, and of Mr. J. H. Langston, M.P,, a 

 large landowner in Oxfordshire, who is noted as a first-class 

 agriculturist and breeder of superior shorthorns. Churchill 

 and Sarsden Lodge farms, near Chipping-Norton, embracing 

 1,200 acres in extent, about 800 of which are arable, form 

 one portion of about 2,000 acres, occupied by Mr. Langston, 

 not in the lavish amateur style, which might adopt the steam 

 plough as a farm luxury, apart from business motives, but 

 farmed with a view to profit, as well as the display of a high 

 order of cultivation ; and under the skilful manager, Mr. 

 Savidge, they pay rent like the other farms on the estate, 

 purchase their own new machinery, and answer the expecta- 

 tions of the proprietor. The soil is all heavy ; geologically 

 situated on the boundary between the oolite cornbrash and 

 the Oxford clay, a few miles north of Wychwood Forest. 

 The land was formerly a region of woods and bogs, now re- 

 claimed by clearing and deep four-feet drainage, which pierced 

 down, however, to nineteen feet in some cases, for cutting-off 

 springs. The fields were laid in high-backed ridges, found 

 necessary to some extent when ploughing with horses and 

 oxen, but are now levelled by the steam-plough, or in some 

 cases thrown down by spade. In spite of the complete under- 

 drainage, water used to appear in the furrows after excessive 

 downfall, but now that the steam-driven shares have severed 

 the Boil to an unwonted depth, not a wet place could be seen 

 after the late heavy rains. Thus, the experience of many 

 other farmers is again confirmed, that, whatever need may 

 exist for the primeval ridge with its water-shed and rain- 

 receptacles under the horse-labour system, there is no doubt 

 as to the ssfety and superiority of a flat surface when under 

 steam husbandry. The fields are moderately spacious, bounded 

 by neat fences; hilly to some extent, and presenting slopes 

 too formidable for a locomotive or traction engine, though 

 traverjed without difficulty by the semi-stationary engine, 

 with its anchor and light wire rope. Good roads compass 

 every field on the farm, and indeed intersect the whole of this 

 large estate— Mr. Langston constructing and repairing all, 

 and the tenantry paying a small acreage rate. Uniform 

 facility for farm traffic is thus secured, in addition to similarity 

 of convenient appliances in the homesteads, in which no less 

 than eleven fixed and portable steam-engines, with their 

 accompanying mechanism, have been erected by the owner. 

 The soil, we said, is heavy, so that, excepting the light sum- 

 mer work, three horses or four oxen are required in turning 

 the usual furrow four to five inches deep — these animals all 

 walking in single line along the bottom of the furrow, to avoid 

 the poaching or detrimental effect of their stepping upon the 

 moist and cohesive surface. Bare fallowing, however, is rarely 

 practised, as green and root crops can be obtained. About 

 three-quarters of a year since Mr. Fowler's machinery, with a 

 ten-horse engine, began its career upon the farm ; for three 

 weeks it worked daily without the slightest accident or break- 

 age, and it has been kept in regular and heavy duty, at fit- 

 ting seasons, up to the present time, in the hands of ordinary 

 labourers, without fracturing the rope or incurring damage or 



delay of any consequence — the area of work done amounting 

 to more than six hundred acres. Three distinct processes 

 have been performed — common ploughing, eight, and some- 

 times ten inches in depth, at the rate of five or six acres a- 

 day ; crossing ploughed laud with grubber-lines, taking a six- 

 feet breadth, accomplishing twelve acres a-day ; and breaking 

 up stubble ground for fallow (by the ploughshares, with small 

 wings added) to a depth of quite twelve to fourteen inches 

 without inverting the torn pieces of soil, doing six to nearly 

 seven acres per day ; and the engine being self-propelling, 

 travelled of its own accord from one part of the farm to 

 another, having only one horse to guide it — the same liorse 

 employed in laying out the rope and fetching coal and water. 

 To show the economy of the steam over the animal draught- 

 work we will allow even a larger force of men than is really 

 needed to manage the apparatus, and suppose them to receive 

 even higher wages than would be the rule in most localities, 

 that is, the labour and the water-carting cost £4 16s. a week. 

 The coal burnt amounts to three tons, at I63. per ton, which, 

 with oil, &c., at 93., will make the weekly working expenses 

 £7 13s. How much must be added for wear and tear, or 

 rather for maintaining the machinery in good order and effi- 

 ciency ? On this unctuous soil there are comparatively few 

 stones to grind the rope, and this being made of patent steel 

 wire, of peculiar hardness and flexibility, and therefore capa- 

 ble of bearing far more friction, and sustaining a much greater 

 working load than rope made of iron wire or of inferior steel, 

 will last, with due care, over a great extent of work ; and, in- 

 deed, in ploughing some hundreds of acres, Mr. Laugston'a 

 rope has suffered little detriment. However, to be safe in our 

 estimate, we allow £120 a-year. which will buy a whole new 

 rope every year, and leave £52 for repairing the engine and 

 machinery, the prime cost of which was £ti35. The farms 

 provide thirty weeks' work in a year ; and, adding this £4 a- 

 week to the field expenses, we have a total weekly outlay of 

 £11 13s., or say, 403. a day. A few more figures bring us to 

 the conclusion that the ploughing has cost 7s. to 8s. an acre, 

 the scuffling or cultivating 38. 6d., and the smashing-up or 

 deep scarifying, 69. to 78. per acre. But the comparison 

 (great as it is) of 50 per cent, saving between the ploughing 

 we saw done at 7s. and the same work by horse labour at fully 

 14s. per acre does not express half the gain upon this strong 

 land. The work, costing but half price, is of far more value 

 when done. We had the corroborative testimony of observant 

 neighbours, that the land steam-ploughed for a seed-bed took 

 two harrowings less to prepare it for the drill — a saving of 

 fully 2s. 6d. per acre over half the farm. In preparing for a 

 fallow crop the advantage is much more surprising. The or- 

 dinary tillage by horses, when the ground is tolerably free 

 from couch, consists of one heavy and two lighter ploughings, 

 three scufflings, and twice rolling and harrowing, costing 

 altogether 55s. per acre ; by steam there is one breaking up in 

 dry autumn weather, two scufflmgs, and twice rolling and har- 

 rowing by horses as before, costing 273. per acre. Thus, bo 

 less than 28s. an acre upon, say a fifth of the farm, is gained 

 from the superior efficacy of the first process (arising, of 

 course, mainly from the favourable time in which steam-power 

 enables it to be performed). So that the steam plough not 

 only works more cheaply than the horse implements, but ren- 

 ders less tillage altogether necessary to be done. But, still 

 further, the horse work is only five to six inches in depth, 

 while the steam work has riven down into the clay at least ten 

 inches of fair measure from the surface level •, and though we 

 might value such an operation, and bring the total gain up to 

 some £2 10s. an acre over this large portion of the farm, the 

 statement would be inadequate to represent its worth, because 

 it is of a character that no team could possibly accomplish, 

 and must be reckoned as a novel addition to all the other til- 

 lage processes of the farm, and demonstrate its intrinsic value 

 in a future wealth of roots and corn. The farm has not I'.ad 

 time to feel the benefit of its shallow clay staple being con- 

 verted into a deep strong loam, but illustrations of the change . 

 are met with universally on deeply-plou?hed lands, in hun- 

 dreds of cottage gardens and allotments, and in the instances 

 described towards the close of this paper. Ample evidence 

 exists as to the increase of produce upon steam-tilled laud, 

 and we hear of improved quality of barley as well as of 

 heavier wheat and far more bulky root crops. The depth and 

 perfection of steam husbandry give not only a greater but 

 more equable grain crop, more free from those failing places 



