236 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



We have, however, examined into the practice of the 

 agriculturists who have adopted the system of Mr. Smith, 

 and there we have found that the results were still more 

 conclusive, because the experiments were extended over 

 entire farms, and had passed through all trials and sur- 

 mounted all obstacles, encountered all the accidents of 

 large farming upon every kind of soil, comprehending 

 light sandy, mixed, and clay. We shall now consider 

 steam culture in its advantages in respect to agricultural 

 economy. We have begun with the practical, and shall 

 now turn to the theory, which, in agriculture especially, 

 is much more logical. 



Amongst the great human industries there is none for 

 which TIME is so precious an element as agriculture. It 

 is the temperature and the vicissitudes of the atmosphere 

 which frequently determine our ruin or prosperity. All 

 practical agriculturists know that the whole labour of a 

 week depends sometimes on a previous operation, which 

 requires a day of drought or rain alone to accomplish. 

 How many times are we not hindered from sowing our 

 fields for want of favourable weather for doing the 

 ploughing and preparing the land ! and who of us has 

 not many a time groaned at not being able to profit of 

 a fine sunny day for want of a sufficient number of 

 horses and men, when the next or the following day 

 the uncertainty of the autumnal temperature brought 

 back the rain and interrupted our too slow operations ? 

 How many times have not our harvests failed for not 

 having been sown at a proper time ? Well, with the 

 steam plough all these fears and dangers and anxieties, 

 which cause us to watch the direction of the wind, the 

 form of the clouds, the cry of the birds, the setting and 

 rising of the sun, the phases of the moon, &c., with all 

 those anxious alternations of fear and hope — all this, we 

 say, will no longer have any necessary existence. As 

 the steamboat, impelled by its j)owerful screw, triumphs 

 alike over the calm and the opposing winds, pursuing its 

 course in spite of all obstacles, leaving very far behind it 

 the unfortunate sailing ship enchained by the calm or 

 thwarted by the currents and adverse winds, agriculture, 

 when it shall have steam for its auxiliary, will be able 

 from that time to free itself in some measure from the 

 atmospheric vicissitudes, which, according as they are 

 favourable or otherwise, accomplish his ruin or pros- 

 perity. 



On clay soils half the harvest may be compromised, 

 when the farmer is obliged to deposit the seed in a wet 

 season by means of the slow labour of his horses. .For 

 example, suppose a farmer of 120 hectares, of which 

 two-fifths are in wheat ; the preparation of 50 hectares 

 of wheat and 25 hectares of winter fallows by scarifying 

 and cleaning will require the labour of twelve horses 

 during at least forty-five days ; then, by keeping count 

 of other requirements of the working which demand the 

 services of the teams, such as putting in the roots, 

 potatoes, turnips, and beetroots, the delivery of the 

 produce sold, the rainy days in which the team remain 

 in the stable, we may reckon at least two months be- 

 tween the first sowings and the last. Everybody knows 

 the inconveniences of a delay so much prolonged ; for 

 if, on one hand, we anticipate the commencement of 

 the sowing, we are liable to the destruction of the too 

 forward plants by the frosts of spring ; and, on the 

 other, if we are forced to sow too late, the winter frost 

 comes to cut off the young plants too feeble to resist its 

 attack, so that on either hand the agriculturist has 

 everything to fear from the inevitable slowness of the 

 means at his disposal. With the steam plough, which 

 prepares the soil at the rate of from three to four 

 hectares (71 to 10 acres) per day, all these incon- 

 veniences disappear, and the operations which would 

 have required the labour of twelve horses during sixty 

 days, may very well be accomplished in half the time — 



say, thirty days. The six or seven horses remaining 

 upon the farm, instead of twelve, will suffice to do all 

 the accessory labour that the business of the farm may 

 require. Besides, what obstacle can there be to the 

 continuance of the work during the night, by means of 

 lanterns, and relays of workmen ? Steam has a long 

 breath ; with water and coal it never tires, and may 

 very well work night and day. How many engines are 

 there, the fires of which are never extinguished .' There 

 is therefore nothing extravagant in classing amongst the 

 advantages of steam culture, that of being able to pro- 

 long during the night those operations for which a 

 suitable time will have double importance and invalu- 

 able efficacy. 



On this point, we are in some degree able to cite 

 examples, for the steam plough has performed on many 

 farms in England during the past season. The following 

 is taken at hazard : Mr. Bird, of Lethywood, near 

 Penkridge in StafTordshire, has been enabled to plough 

 29 hectares 40 ares (72a. 2r. 13p.) in fifteen days, 

 during which they have made six transports of the 

 apparatus, equivalent to three days' labour, some of the 

 fields being far distant from the others. fThis gives 2 

 hectares 52 ares (about 6 acres 35 perches) per day, 

 from seven o'clock in the morning to five at night, in- 

 cluding half-an-hour for breakfast and an hour for 

 dinner. To work this quantity of land in fifteen days 

 would have required from twenty to twenty-four horses 

 and five or six ploughs. At all events, with the number 

 of horses usually employed on a farm of this im- 

 portance, it would have required double the time — say, 

 thirty days instead of fifteen. The sowing has therefore 

 been advanced one-half, whilst the horses remained free, 

 and have been employed with the harrows and drill 

 whilst the steam machinery did the ploughing. The fol- 

 lowing is the calculation of the expenses for these fifteen 

 days' work. 



fr. c. 

 Three men and two boys, coal, oil, and T ^nn rn 



fetching water j 



Taking machinery from one field to another. . 22 50 

 20 per cent, interest and diiapida- I -.r.^ -j^jv 



tion of machinery j 



Calculation of 200 days' labour of! ,r. k^„ 



the machine , . . . . 



'} 



21 000 



315 00 



900 00 



This gives 30 fr. 60 c. per hectare, or about lOs. 2d. per 

 acre. The same work done by hojses would have cost 

 at least 45 fr. or 15s. per acre, without reckoning the 

 delay of fifteen days in the sowing. 



Mr. Redman, of Overton, near Swindon, has ploughed 

 63 hectares in 35 days with Fowler's plough, at an 

 expense of 24 fr. 75 c. per hectare, or about 10s. per 

 acre. F. Robiou de la Trehonnais. 



LICE ON CALVES.— A number of years ago I had a 

 yearling that grew poor, and I could not help it. Its breath- 

 ing became so loud that it could be heard several rods. I 

 thought it would die. One of my neighbours told me that 

 he had heard that sour buttermilk was good. I procured 

 some, and washed it from head to foot ; and in three days 

 his breathing was very regular, and he was as smart as 

 need be. I had no more trouble with him. — Rural New- 

 YorJcer. 



