20 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



back to the dry portions of tlie yard, taking it out of the 

 tanks with a wooden scoop or "jet.'' When there is 

 too mucli wetness already in the yard, I take it away 

 altogether by means of a very simple species of liquid- 

 manure carl. I bought a 98 gallon rum-puncheon of 

 a liquor-merchant; had a couple of deal rims |)Ut on it, 

 so that it could roll without the " bouge" touching the 

 ground ; and gudgeons, like those of a churn, fixed on 

 the two ends ; and chains attached, so that a horse can 

 roll it along. This cask, so fitted up, is placed in a 

 hole dus? for the purpose, sufficiently low for 

 the stable and cow-house drainage to pour 

 into the bung-hole. When it is to be emptied, 

 the bung is put in ; a sort of barrel-churn 

 fastening holds it safely in. A horse is yoked to the 

 chains, and rolls the cask up two inclined spars on to 

 the level ground ; then it is taken to some garden- 

 paddocks near at hand, to the pastures, the plot of 

 Italian rye-grass, the compost heaps of gathered ditch- 

 scouriiigs, pond mud, road-scrapings, ashes of burnt 

 hedgrt-clippings, &c., or wherever it may be wanted. 

 For distributing upon the grass-land, the cask is taken 

 half full, then filled up with water from a pond close by, 

 so as to avoid too strong and burning a dose ; and the 

 bung being withdrawn, the iir|uor Hows out inter- 



mittently as the cask rolls round. Pulled into the 

 straw-yard, alongside one of the tanks, it is soon filled 

 with a scoop ; and thus, with little expenditure of 

 labour, and with a water-cart costing only about a 

 couple of sovereigns altogether, my liquid manuring is 

 accomplished, the excess of water removed from the 

 yard every few days, many acres round the homestead 

 kept in splendid condition, to say nothing of fat beds in 

 the kitchen garden, bringing rhubarb like tree-trunks 

 and asparagus thick as hoe-handles, some rare mangold 

 and turnip compost manufactured by the rich filterings, 

 while the general mass of farmyard dung is improved 

 instead of deteriorated by the removal of these washings. 

 The precise expenses in labour and the value of returns 

 in augmented fertility, saving of manure-making mate- 

 rial used in the yards in the shape of cattle food, and 

 the increased comfort, healthiness, and thriving of the 

 stock, it may be difficult to compare ; but those managers 

 who are situated as I was will doubtless appreciate the 

 advantages as highly as I do. Certainly "a good 

 schemer is better than a great eater ;" and let young 

 farmers, who are fond of trying new dodges when these 

 are comparatively inexpensive, make an experiment of 

 my cheap tanks and rolling water-cart. 



Quisauis. 



ACTUAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE ST^AM PLOUGH. 



If " an ounce of practice be worth a pound of 

 theory," the following particulars of steam-ploughing 

 upon two farms will doubtless be appreciated by our 

 readers ; and mainly becausf-, they describe the working 

 of the ploughs by agricultural labourers upon the land 

 of business men, instead of mere trials against time 

 with a set of show tackle under the practised guidance 

 of the inventor's workmen. 



Between Stafford and Wolverhampton, and near to 

 the estate of Lord Hatherlon, where the steam-cultivator 

 of Mr. Smith, of Woolston, has proved so successful in 

 cleaning foul ground, forwarding the prei)aration of 

 land for root crops, effecting deep tillage, and saving 

 horse labour, we have lately seen one of Mr. Fowler's 

 steam-ploughs at work ; this is on the farm of Mr. 

 Bird, of Littywood, near Pcnkridge Station. The soil 

 varies from a hard red-brown conglomerate of clay and 

 pebbles, stiffened in the ancient days by enormous ap- 

 plications of " kag marl " from the great pits 

 which still g'lpe in every field with openings 

 more than 20 feet deep, to lighter soil where the 

 gravel predominates. Bare fallows were customary, 

 but are giving way to a more profitable growth of man- 

 gold, turnips, &c., partially eaten off by sheep. The 

 fashion is to plough in " five-bolt butts," that is, small 

 lands or stetches of ten furrows each ; and the work 

 being thus all " cops" and " reanes," not only is there 

 a waste of ground from such a redundance of water- 

 furrows, but flure is a great loss of time in j)loughing, 

 by having to gather up the land. By means of good 

 pipe drainage, 3 or 4 feet deep, Mr. Bird, who farms 



600 acres, only a small proportion of which is pasture, 

 has been able to practise ploughing on the flat, with the 

 result of a considerable increase of yield in his crops, in 

 spite of the forebodings and taunts of neighbouring ma- 

 nagers, who prophesied a beautiful " irrigation" of his 

 wheat, after a smart rainfall. Horse-ploughing, 6 inches 

 deep, is done with four horses ; and the " custom of the 

 country" allows the outgoing tenant only 10s. for the 

 operation ; whereas the four horses at 2s. 6d. each, 

 man 2s. 6d., and boy 8d. per day, make an expense of 

 13s. to 158. per acre; and when the work is heavy, or 

 at a depth of 7 or 8 inches, and only three roods a day 

 cui be done, the cost amounts to 17s. or 20s. per 

 acre ; and deep ploughing is especiallydemanded on this 

 over-marled land, in order to bring up the lighter soil 

 that lies beneath. 



After much consideration and examination of dif- 

 ferent steam-tilling apparatus, Mr. Bird has adopted 

 Mr. Fowler's plough in connexion with an engine 

 of peculiar construction and capabilities, purposing 

 also to work a scarifier with the same tackle, and he has 

 lately turned over a considerable extent of land, some as 

 much as 8 inches in depth, the principal part of the work 

 averaging 6 to 7 inches. In fifteen days about 70 

 acres have been plouglicd, and six removals made, ave- 

 raging about half a day each, as some of the fields were 

 a long way distant from each other. This will be equiva- 

 lent to about b acres for a full day's work, that is, from 

 7 to 5 o'clock, with half-an-hour's stoppage for break- 

 fast, and an hour for dinner. In a ten-hours' day of 

 course a larger amount of work would be accomplished. 



