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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



well, and moreover store-sheep would thrive even if let 

 alone to provide for themselves. The great thing is to 

 suit the food to the stock, and the stock to the food ; 

 no one would think it best to give very costly food to 

 inferior animals or breeding stock, as a rule. The 

 selection of the animals or class of animals must be left 

 to the judgment of the farmer. I would suggest that all 

 kinds of young stock requiring a little extra nursing be 

 included — young calves and stirks, cull lamb-hoggets, also 

 aged ewes, and old cows. But the most important classes 

 are those of animals requiring to be quickly fatted ; for 

 these classes the system has very great advantages, and 

 it cannot be too extensively carried out, nor too care- 

 fully practised. It is what I would designate the 

 " topping up" system, and I would bring all animals up 

 to it by degrees ; for instance, I would use a turnip- 

 cutter up to a certain point or stage in the animal's 

 fattening, and then commence with pulped food to com- 



plete the process; or, on the other band, in the case of 

 animals as above, that require nursing, I would give 

 them pulped food till fairly brought round to a healthy 

 thriving state, and then give them cut food : this merely 

 on the ground of expense. Milch cows will pay well 

 for this extra expense ; and what is better, the process of 

 pulping appears to give off so much of the watery par- 

 ticles containing the peculiar flavour of the root as to 

 prevent any ill effects or odour to the butter. 



In concluding this short paper, I would say once for 

 all, that pulping roots in the early part of the winteri 

 unquestionably much to be preferred to cutting or slicmg, 

 and is as a general rule also far more advantageous, 

 but it is more expensive. The great question therefore, 

 in the every-day experience of the farmer, will be, to 

 decide as to what stock lie will give pulped food, and to 

 what he would give cut or sliced food, and, further, what 

 he will leave to provide for themselves. 



THE STEAM-PLOUGH — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 



Tracing a mechanical invention through its early 

 history and first attempts, with a view of fixing the ex- 

 act date of its birth, and determining who were the real 

 parents, is something like searching into the origin of 

 evil. You never can make out how it was that the 

 first stop was taken, or what suggested the novel idea. 

 And if you meet with the originator, as you suppose, it 

 is sure to turn out that similar schemes existed long be- 

 fore bis, and that there actually is " nothing new under 

 the sun." 



The question, " Who invented the steam plough ?" 

 is one of this kind ; but we think a far more prac- 

 tically useful inquiry just now is, not Who first tried 

 and failed ? but Who is at present able to give us the 

 best realization of the old ideas, combined with im- 

 proved new ones ? However, though there are difficul- 

 ties attaching to the settlement of priority of invention, 

 it is sometimes possible to trace the progress of a single 

 ingenious mind ; and very interesting and instructive 

 the history often is. Mr. Smith, of Woolston, has told 

 us how, having devised a new mode of tillage — the 

 fruit of much meditation and practical trial — he longed 

 for some means of yoking steam-power to his imple- 

 ments ; and caught the idea from witnessing the novel 

 operation of the draining-engine at the Lincoln Meeting. 

 Other experimenters had preceded Mr. Fowler and Mr. 

 Smith ; but that ingenious machinery — so cleverly com- 

 bined, so beautifully simple, with its engine and wind- 

 ing barrels neatly built together on one set of carriage- 

 wheels, its pulleys firmly anchored, and smooth- working 

 wonderful wire-rope hauling onward that immense im- 

 plement hundreds of yards distant from the motive power 

 —that machinery made steam culture apracticable matter 

 in the eyes of every clear-seeing man of business. The 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England's judges wrote : 

 " The trial of these immense implements could not fail 

 to awaken much interest in our minds. A small six- 

 hor.?e engine with comparative case performed the work 



of 150 horses, drawing so regularly that no oscillation 

 was observable. ' Surely,' was our remark, ' this 

 power can be applied to more general purposes.' We 

 earnestly commend this idea to our engineers and ma- 

 chinists." " Applied to more general purposes" ? — of 

 course it could be. Here stood a portable engine, not 

 in a yard, but in a spacious field ; not beside a wheat- 

 stack, but upon a piece of ground that wanted draining. 

 No strap to drive a thrashing-box or mill, but spur- 

 wheel gear, working strong coiling-drums, hung in a 

 framing fixed to one end of the boiler. Why, then, any 

 mechanism we like may be similarly connected with a 

 common engine ! And to move an implement, the 

 engine need not travel, as we used to think was a neces- 

 sity of the case, and a necessity nobody knew how to 

 get over, on arable uphill and downhill fields — for there 

 stands the engine puffing away in the corner. For 

 pulling the plough, the toughest hemp hawser would 

 be useless ; it would wear out in no time : cliain, again, 

 wraps so jerkingly on the barrel, and besides would 

 lose all the power, in dragging so heavily along the 

 ground. But that metal rope, quite flexible round the 

 great pulleys, strong as you please, and lasting a long 

 while where flints and hard limestones do not rasp it too 

 much ; that, made lighter for shallower operations and 

 easier draught, is just what we have been waiting for. 

 The anchorages are readily set down or removed ; and 

 with what a tremendous purchase they grip in their 

 holes ! how easy to make a slighter fixing, on the same 

 principle, for ordinary tillage ! And the huge imple- 

 ment, too— how steadily yet resistlessly it moves ! What 

 an unheard-of depth that massive coulter is penetrating ! 

 Why steam power might subsoil to any pitch, and could 

 trench our lands like market-gardens 1 The soil trem- 

 bles for vards on each side ; the coulter and wedge- 

 mole are making a little earthquake down IjoIow. De- 

 pend upon it, steam-subsoiling would loosen and shake, 

 and let in air and rain-water, in a manner never thought 



