THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



hind-wheels. Over very imperfect roads, up gradients 

 of greater steepness than 1 in 10, up-hill and down-hill 

 in arable fields, this eugine travels, without having 

 recourse to the "endless rails," though in some cir- 

 cumstances they would be advisable, and it works for 

 any length of time upon a comparatively steep headland 

 without danger to its tubes or fire-box. 



But we cannot dn-ell longer just now upon this inge- 

 nious invention, and must proceed to detail some still 

 more extensive and satisfactory operations in Wiltshire. 



Mr. Tbos. II. Redman, of Ovcrtown, near Swindon, 

 farms on the hills in the vicinity of the chalk downs ; 

 but though you see fine turnips and swedes growing, 

 and the spade finds chalk rubble and pebbles at five to 

 fifteen inches below the surface, there are plenty of in- 

 dications savouring strongly of a heavy soil ; a con- 

 siderable breath of bare fallows, the ground light- 

 coloured, but hard and brittle in dry weather, or stony 

 like concrete ; and when wetted with a shower, greasy, 

 slippery, or sticky, like birdlime, making heavy 

 work alike for the antique wooden plough of 

 the neighbourhood, or the steel mould -board 

 of Howard's modern one. Naturally drained by 

 the soft rock beneath, this forms a rich, unctuous 

 soil, tiresome in wet weather, and "mauly" 

 enough under the foot of the ploughman, but requiring 

 only a greater depth and perfection of tillage, and free- 

 dom from the kneadiny tread of the team — solidifying 

 a mass already too consolidated — to produce far greater 

 yields than are at present raised, and become no longer 

 a costly, but a grateful calcareous clay. On 430 acres 

 arable seven ploughs are requisite, and the team kept 

 to work them consist of 13 horses and 13 oxen ; 

 three horses or four oxen ploughing a furrow 4 J or 5 

 inches deep. It is quite possible that the powerful 

 high-priced horses used by Mr. Redman might be 

 exchanged, with mechanical advantage, for more active 

 and naturally quick-stepping horses; but still it will 

 remain true that excessively heavy work has to be 

 done ; for we ourselves tested the draught of a Howard's 

 iron plough with steel mould-board, finding it to he 

 in two fields 6 cwt. for a furrow 10 inches wide and fi 

 inches deep, and in two other fields no less than 10 cwt. 

 for a furrow 10 inches wide and 7 inches deep. The 

 frost was out of the ground when these trials were made, 

 but the labourers declared that the work went far easier 

 than is frequently the case. The customary allowance 

 to a tenant for one ploughing is 8s., 10s., or 12s. an 

 acre ; but it evidently costs much more, and, after all, 

 the work is most imperfectly and miserably done. 

 The winter-ploughing Mr. Redman estimates at 

 16s. per acre, reckoning horse-keep at 23. a-head 

 per day. However, as each horse has li bushels of 

 oats per week, with wheat-chaflF, and 1| cwt. of hay, we 

 should take the daily cost of a horse at 28. 6d., making 

 the work considerably dearer. Ploughing by oxen, at 

 the rate of 4 acres a-week for each team of four, he has 

 carefully estimated as costing 5s. 6d. in summer and 

 88. Cd. in the time of winter keeping ; but the work is 

 shallow, the injury by trampling and poaching very 

 great, and woefully inferior to that required by this land, 



butwhich teams are utterly unable to perform at all. Three 

 horses, costing 15s. each per week, and a man and a 

 boy 10s. (in this county of low wages), amount to a sum 

 of 55s. ; and the 4 acres ploughed in this time cost there- 

 fore nearly 14s. per acre. Consider, moreover, that the 

 depreciation in value of the horses on such land as this 

 is a heavy matter, besides the interest of first cost, and 

 the expense of harness, implement, &c., to be added. 

 Some of the work done by the steam-plough was 7 

 inches deep, bringing up 2 inches of the hard subsoil, 

 and the draught of a furrow being 10 cwt., showed that 

 six horses would be required in order to achieve 

 such an operation. Yes, light-land managers ! 

 a horse cannot drag 2 cwt. all day here as he 

 could with you, because of the labour involved in the 

 bad walking — an element that ought never to be lost 

 sight of, in calculating horse-power. Six horses would 

 do little more than half an acre a-day, say 4 acres per 

 week ; and the cost then amounts to upwards of 25s. per 

 acre, or considerably more, including depreciation, in- 

 terest, and contingencies. 



No wonder, then, that Mr. Redman should make up 

 his mind (as great numbers of farmers similarly placed 

 will be found to do) to try steam-ploughing. Having 

 purchased one of Mr. Fowler's sets of tackle with a ten- 

 horse double-cylinder engine, he has turned over 150 

 acres in about thirty-five days of actual work, or an 

 average of nearly 4J- acres per day. Eleven acres of 

 the heaviest work of all were completed in four days. 

 The estimated expense, reckoning wear and tear, and 

 interest at 20 per cent., and two hundred days' work in 

 the year, at 5 acres a-day, and say one removal in a 

 week — the fields being large — comes to about 9s. per 

 acre average ; the heaviest work to about I'js. per acre; 

 from which it appears that the steam-plough has worked 

 at about one-third to two-fifths less expense than the 

 animal power. This cheapness of tillage, however, is a 

 small consideration compared with the saving of time, 

 the depth and excellence of Ihe work, the keeping of 

 fewer horses, &e., all which points we must reserve for a 

 tuture communication, which shall contain minute de- 

 rails of the work on this farm. 



HOW TO PLANT ROSES.— Lov/, wet ground is un- 

 favourable for the growth of roses, and if planted in such 

 soils, without tlie aid of artificial drainage, they soon become 

 mossy and die aw.ay. Where your soil is of this character 

 you must proceed thus :— First of all have the whole of the 

 ground well drained, then trench it over to the depth of 

 eighteen inches or two feet, throwing the mould up in ridges 

 to allow of the frost and win-Js to act upon it; when tho- 

 roughly dry, level it down, and where the plants are to be 

 placed, take out the soil two feet deep; p it about six inches 

 of brick-bats in the bottom, then mix some well-rotted ma. 

 nure with the soil, and fill in as before. With a deep stiff" 

 loam and dry subsoil, which is the natural soil of the rose, 

 little more than trenching and manuring will be required, 

 excepting for the tea-scented and China tribe, for which the 

 addition of sand and leaf-mould will be necessary. 



