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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



the people cheaply. The landlord or the farmer who 

 saves his time and his money by the concentrated power 

 and speed of a hundred horses on the rail, or five hun- 

 dred on the ocean, must draw comparisons and conclu- 

 sions adverse and disparaging to our present slow and 

 crawling system of agricultural mechanics. The general 

 application of steam in agriculture involves a thorough 

 change and reformation of our farming system. It is a 

 question of more capital and less land, both for landlord 

 and tenant. It is a question of a compensation for un- 

 exhausted improvements, or an ample protection of 

 tenure by lease ; and it is a question of public registra- 

 tion and easy transfer of landed property. It will com- 

 pel a more accurate observance of the laws of mechanics, 

 and will sharpen the intellects of the agricultural labour- 

 ing community. In a word, the employment of steam- 

 power in agriculture will compel or induce a larger 

 employment of labour and production of food. Drain- 

 age, deeper cultivation, ojien fields, good roads, better 

 buildings, more live stock, and less weeds, must and 

 will be the concomitants of agricultural steam-power; 

 for steam-power means amendment and progression. 

 It would be a curious statistic could we accurately know 

 the number of horses that would be required to produce 

 a power equivalent to that now in action by our fixed, 

 locomotive, and marine engines. I apprehend that, if 

 the whole surface of England were sown with oats and 

 cropped with grass for hay, there would not be enough 

 to feed the requisite number of horses ; and if there 

 were food enough we must have whole towns of stables, 

 streets of harness-makers, and squares of farriers and 

 veterinary surgeons. Well, then, but for steam, the 

 happy inhabitants of merry England could not and 

 would not have those luxuries, comforts, or necessaries 

 which they now enjoy. Honour to that departed 

 philosopher, whose sagacity and perception, under 

 Divine Providence, applied the bubbling resistance of 

 our tea-kettles to the most noble and useful purposes of 

 humanity." 



My Opinion of Buitish Aguiculture. — While 

 the agricultural community is congratulating itself on 

 its rapid progress, and while our talented friend Mon- 

 sieur de la Trehonnais is holding us up to his country- 

 men in France as models of agricultural progress, your 

 humble servant is lamenting our agricultural backward- 

 ness and imperfection. This discrepancy of sentiment 

 may be readily accounted for. They compare the pre- 

 sent with the past. With them the extensive back- 

 ground of non-improvement throws up in pleasant 

 relief the bright spots of progress. With them the ex- 

 ceptions excuse the rule. With me they do but con- 

 demn it, and point to its amendment. We may admit 

 that much of our light and self-drained lands is very 

 much improved, and in many districts very highly 

 farmed ; but that extensive portion of our island, called 

 cold, stiff, tenacious clay, fifteen-sixteenths of which are 

 still undrained, is to my certain knowledge in a most 

 unsatisfactory and unprofitable condition, as regards the 

 interests of landlord, tenant, and the country at large. 

 Now it is, in my opinion, precisely these soils which, 

 when improved, are the most dependable for a result. 



containing as they do, an undeveloped treasure of am- 

 moniacal and phosphatic fertility. Those gifts have not 

 yet been availed of, and it is steam cultivation alone, 

 after drainage, that can place those subterranean 

 treasures at our disposal. My observation of the pre- 

 sent cultivation of our stiff clays would give an average 

 depth of about four to five inches — all below this may 

 be considered an unknown and unimproved territory. 

 It is true that after drainage, the filtration or percola- 

 tion of water and manure will gradually and certainly 

 aerate and improve the subsoil, but the process is too 

 slow for these quick-moving times. You want rapidly 

 to dry these dead and saturated masses by atmospheric 

 exposure. The dense and closely packed mass of in- 

 finitesimal granules must be separated by pulverization, 

 so that the millions of almost imperceptible fibres may 

 introduce themselves without difficulty to the hitherto 

 unapproachable but fertilizing ingredients of the subsoil. 

 Liebig, and our other great chemical lights, have proved 

 to us that every breath of air that passes over newly ex- 

 posed clay abstracts from it its moisture, and in ex- 

 change blesses it with ammoniacal and fertilizing gases. 

 As you follow the steam-cultivator on a dry day, in- 

 stantaneous exhalations strike your nostrils, and con- 

 vince you that the earth is a great apothecary's shop 

 full of chemical compounds. The rough and lightly 

 laid fallow absorbs the fructifying sunbeams, and 

 imparts to the air in contact with it an expansive heat, 

 which causes it to rise in wavy playfulness in its struggle 

 through the superincumbent but colder atmosphere. 

 The rusty-looking iron of our so-called poor clay sub- 

 soils, makes greedy claim upon the passing ammonia. 

 A volume might be written by our chemists upon the 

 advantages of evaporation, percolation, dews, frosts, 

 fogs, and sunshine. Jelhro TuU was the prince of cul- 

 tivators, but the want of artificial drainage defeated all 

 his calculations. The Rev. Mr. Smith, of Lois-Weedon, 

 is the great Jethro Tull of the present day. Fifteen 

 years ago I was convinced that on our stiff yellow clays 

 cultivation was more important than manure ; acting 

 on that conviction, after I had drained my land, I broke 

 it up with three horses, six other horses following in the 

 same track, with Smith of Deanston's great subsoil 

 plough. Our labourers called it a little earthquake, 

 and my crops have never forgotten it ; but for all that 

 I saw how costly was horse-power when deep cultivation 

 was attempted, and how necessary it was that we should 

 apply steam to get a yard deep of cultivation, instead of 

 ten or twelve inches. 



Agricultural Doubts about Steam. — I con- 

 fess I was very much astonished that our progressive 

 friend, Mr. R. Smith, in his recent lecture to this Club 

 on " Agricultural Progress," should describe steam- 

 culture as " yet a venture." I consider steam-cultiva- 

 tion an accomplished fact ; profitably accomplished, and 

 therefore practically attained. It is impossible to deny 

 with truthfulness that both Mr. Fowler's and Mr. 

 Smith's plans are practically proven and sealed with the 

 stamp of superiority over horse-power, both in cost and 

 effect, by the award and medal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England. From my own observation of 



