THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



159 



nevertheless is a fact that for 13 years he has doue so, and 

 certainly we may say that that which has heeii done before 

 may, in like circumstances, be done again. The large profit to 

 be derived by carryiufj it out by my system must be my excuse 

 for bringing the suhject before you ; and I must add, that I 

 do not see how it would be practicable to carry it out by any 

 other system of steam cultivation. The rails forming guides 

 to the implements, and the implements being suspended from 

 above, would enable me to cultivate at all times between the 

 rows of growing corn. 



By my steam cultivation (after paying interest for money, 

 rent, &c.), 5^. per acre would be cleared per annum, with wheat 

 at its present low price, and without taking any value for the 

 straw. If such profits could be obtained for only 13 years, the 

 fee simple of average-priced laud would have been paid twice 

 over. By hand labour the profits are considerably less, and 

 not easy of attainment on a large scale ; while by horses it is 

 hardly practicable. 



The West Lndies. — The power which the guideway cul- 

 ture has for working between the rows of the standing sugar- 

 cane (which in some soils remain for many years undisturbed), 

 for the purpose of ploughing, earthing the crops, and for per- 

 forming the hoeings which arc so constantly required, renders 

 my system invaluable for this laborious cultivation. The 

 cartage of crops (a very heavy and CDustant operation) would 

 also be performed. A plantation would thus be rendered, in 

 all its field labours, independent of the inconstant and irregular 

 attendance now obtained, and the crops would in consequence 

 be greatly increased. 



The capital required may be thought too great for proprie- 

 tors in the colonies ; but this is erroneous, the cultivation of 

 sugar being one of the most costly and the most profitable in 

 the world. 



The money necessary to carry out ray system is less than 

 half that required to purchase the slaves for the field work of 

 an estate in America or in Cuba; the daily cost of the work 

 is far less than the keep of the slaves ; and as slave estates can 

 co2jpete with free labour estates in our colonies, and the pro- 

 prietors succeed in making large profits, the system which I 

 propose would evidently give a very large interest for the 

 money laid out, and would free the land of the difficulty 

 attached to its cultivation from the scarcity of labour, or as 

 has been the case in many parts of the West Indies, of having 

 no labour at all to put upon it, and in consequence losing its 

 entire value. 



It must be admitted that the disadvantages under which a 

 new principle of steam cultivation labours in its development 

 by means of home-made instead of factory-made machinery is 

 great ; but it surely tells much for the probable future of my 

 principle, that with all such disadvantages, I had still, in a 

 few months from the time of completing my cultivator, per- 

 formed the whole range of the operations of the field, and at a 

 coat very small in comparison with that by horses ; while, on 

 any of the previously-invented principles, after more than 

 thirty years of trial by men, some of large means and well- 

 established talent, not one operation has yet been effectually 

 performed by steam-power but that of breakiiig-up the land ; 

 while, moreover, as I before mentioned, it is hardly in the cost 

 of the operation itself of breakiug-up the laud by steam-power 

 in comparison with ploughing with horses, that any claim can 

 be made of a saving ; for instance, Mr. Fowler's average 

 ploughing is, by the judges' report, about seven shillings per 

 acre versus seven shillings by horses, and Mr. Smith's breakiug- 

 up land is computed at a fraction more ; but it is rather in 

 some accompanying circumstances that a commercial advan- 

 tage is gained, such as not treading on the ground during the 



ploughing operation, and a concentration of power at suitable 

 seasons, enabling a reduction of horse-power, all of which I 

 gain in a higher ratio, for I never tread on the ground in any 

 one opeiation during the year, and I can concentrate power iu 

 a doulile degree, for I can plough, hoe, drill, eeed, &c , at night 

 as well as in the day. In fact. Professor John Wilson, who, 

 you are aware, was one of the j'ldges appointed by the Royal 

 Agricultural Society to award a prize of 500/. for the best 

 steam-plough, at Chester, did me the honour to visit my place, 

 and having witnessed the various operations, remarked upon the 

 poin*^, when I alluded to it, in these words : — " Of course that 

 which they gain in a degree, you gain in the extreme ; in fact, 

 your system would make farming operation equal to market 

 gardening." 



The following is a list of the operations which I have per- 

 formed by my cultivators : — 



I have ploughed, subsoiled, harrowed, rolled, used the clod- 

 crusher, used the Norwegian harrow ; I have drilled seed dry 

 and with liquid manure, hoed the crops, used the scarifier, 

 reaped corn, carried crops, carried water ; I have watered crops 

 over the surface of the ground and plants, aud watered in rows 

 upon rows of seed or young plants to economise water or 

 'iquid manure ; I have drilled the seed between rows of stand- 

 ing plants, and I have performed the new operations of the 

 " comminutor," weed-root extractor and artificial manure dis- 

 tributor, already explained ; the underground watering be- 

 tween rows of standing plants, and ploughing by night. 



I have enabled the following hand operations to be performed 

 w'th greater facility to the labourer, greater economy iu time 

 and cost, and greater regularity than can now be performed, 

 namely, dibbling seed, transplanting, hand -weeding, cross- 

 hoeing, and taking off crops — without, in any case, treading 

 upon the ground, or spoiling rows of growing plants interlined 

 between other rows. 



Besides these operations, there are many others which are 

 not now performed by machinery or horses, which I expect to 

 accomplish by steam machinery. For instance, I have no 

 doubt of being able to perform dibbling seed, and also, when 

 required, cross-hoeing; and the followiug very important 

 operation— which cannot be effected by horses— could be easily 

 done by my system, from the fact of being able to pass repeat- 

 edly over the same ground without treading or touching the 

 land, and from the facility which I have of concentrating a 

 large amount of power upon any one portion of land at one 

 time. 



The ground is first ploughed one deep furrow, say, in 

 autumn. It is then lifted by a suitable broaJ-lifting plougl J 

 and laid in wide ridges, leaving broad pans of about four feet 

 in width. The pan is then ploughed and sub-soiled, part of 

 the mould at the same time becoming mixed by the operation 

 with the bottom soil ; it is then left for the weather and the 

 winter's frosts to act upon it. Afterwards the ridges are split 

 down and the land levelled for forming the seed bed, or the 

 sides may be split down, and the operations reversed, and that 

 lying under the first ridges be sub-soiled and exposed. By 

 such operations, in the course of a short period, without bring- 

 ing to the surface any of the subsoil, or any more of the sub- 

 soil than is desired, land may be reduced to a fine deep mould. 



Taking a review, therefore, of all the advantages of the sys- 

 tem, comprising the ability of concentrating a large amount of 

 power, as shown in the bouting of land, and so far as time is 

 concerned, by working twenty-four hours in the day; (he 

 advantages of my " comminutor," the facility for performing 

 the most delicate operations, the absence of all treading upon 

 and consolidating the soil, and thereby the avoidance of injury 

 to growing plants ; the ability to water growing plants without 



