THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



505 



both these plans, I am sure it will pay to use them. 

 Had I not my fixed steam-engine I should at once adopt 

 the practice, although my land has all been already very 

 deeply disturbed, but I suppose I must hire a portable- 

 engine. As 



A Proof of the Advantages of Steam-Culti- 

 vation, let me mention the following fact : At my 

 great gathering in July, 1856, Mr. Fowler's steam- 

 plough, with the subsoiler attached, cultivated two 

 stetches of clover lea, bein;? part of a field on which 

 wheat was to be sown in October. Although that field 

 had been formerly subsoiled, and forked by manual 

 labour, Fowler's subsoil brought up and exposed to 

 view some undisturbed nasty ochrey and rusty subsoil. 

 Some of our agricultural friends would shrug their 

 shoulders and say nothing would grow on it, but mark 

 the result. In October or November the wheat was 

 duly drilled over the whole field ; as soon as it came up, 

 and in every stage of its growth, those two stetches 

 showed their superiority. After harvest the field was 

 all manured and dug with the fork, and produced a fine 

 crop of mangel in 1853. It is now (April, 1859), in 

 wheat again, and in this early stage of growth, the two 

 stetches — st'jam-ploughed in 1856 — still show a supe- 

 riority ! My meu called my attention to this only on 

 Saturday last. But who can seriously doubt the benefits 

 of deep cultivation on strong clays after drainage ? 

 After the recent showers, I could see the deeply-moved 

 soil, over drains, showing light-coloured and dry, whilst 

 the intermediate spaces were dark and damp. It was 

 deep cultivation that did this, producing facile aeration, 

 powerful capillarity, and rapid evaporation. It proves 

 that a yard or four feet deep of cultivation is not a bit 

 too deep ; and when I remember that at my friend 

 Dixon's, near Witham, a parsnip was pulled up whose 

 roots were thirteen feet six inches long, and then broke 

 off, I seriously believe that we have uo present idea as 

 to what depth of cultivation and drainage we shall 

 ultimately arrive at with steam-power. Why did that 

 parsnip go so deep ? Because the earth had all been 

 moved to the depth of fourteen feet. It had ber-n a 

 brick-earth pit, filled up with soil from the adjoining 

 land, when it was necessary to open a new pit ; air and 

 water had circulated freely to the depth of 14 feet. It 

 is not what an operation costs, but what profit it pays, 

 that must guide us. The shilling flail is superseded by 

 one that costs ^SOO, as a matter of economy and profit. 

 Who is to say that we shall not have scarifiers ov grub- 

 bers whose tines will gradually go four, five, or six feet 

 deep, drawn by a 100-horsepower engine? Am I 

 visionary in anticipating such a result ? Is it more 

 astounding than Fowler's draining-plough — drawing, 

 as it were by magic, its lines of pipes, like ropes of 

 sausages, deep into the bowels of the most obstinate 

 clays ? And here I should consider myself ungrateful 

 indeed did I not record my admiration of, and gratitude 

 to, that spirited and far-seeing man, who has devoted 

 his fortune and his mind to the successful realization of 

 what agriculture once considered a romantic and chime- 

 rical idea. If my anticipations are to be realized, let 

 our shallow drainers deepen their ideas and spare their 

 pockets. 



Our PRESENT PLANS OF StEAM CULTIVATION. 



My public position as an agriculturist brings to me 

 many an anxious and intelligent inventor, whose sleep- 

 less mind is worn and absorbed by the great one idea, 

 and who languishes for the wherewithal to develop and 

 give a practical bearing to his thoughts. I often feel , 

 as I listen to the anxious and confidential communica- 

 tion, how much must be done and suffered ere the prac- 

 tical public will avail of and pay for the inventor's 

 genius. We ought to feel grateful to those who I know 

 have devoted their money and time to the improvements 

 in machinery. It is not my intention to make invidious 

 comparisons between the various means for steam cul- 

 (ure. Let each one consult the judges' decision, as 

 given in the last number of the Royal Agricultural So- 

 ciety's Journal. Let him spend a little time and 

 money in watching the practical operations which are 

 now so extensively going on — to which access is so 

 liberally granted, and which are so accurately described 

 by the various agricultural publications of the day. 

 Years ago I ventured to predict that we should soon 

 have forty different modes of steam cultivation. Such 

 an idea is rapidly approaching realization. We have 

 now — 1. Fowler's Draining and Trenching Ploughs. 2. 

 Smith's Scarifiers. 3. Williams's ditto. 4. Boydell's 

 Traction Engine. 5. Bray's ditto. 6. Romaine's 

 Cultivator. 7. Fiskin's Plough. 8. Rickett's Archi- 

 medean Cultivator. 0. Halkett's Railway system of 

 Steam Culture ; and I know of others which are yet to 

 meet the public eye. I rejoice in the pungent and 

 gladiatorial rivalry on this subject, which fills the 

 columns of our agricultural newspapers. The steam- 

 press is developing steam cultivation — drawing the at- 

 tention of even the lag-behinds of agriculture, and 

 making them progress in spite of their prejudices. I 

 have no fear but that each claimant for public steam 

 favour will meet his reward according to his merits. 

 Agriculture is a fine open field of comparison, if people 

 will but look at it. I recently saw Mr. Smith's Steam 

 Cultivator (made by Messrs. Howard) at work on a 

 farm of stiff soil in Hertfordshire. Its work appeared to 

 me simple and perfect. It was smashing up or grub- 

 bing the land four-and-a-half to five inches deep at the 

 cost of one-shilling an acre for coals, two shilling-and- 

 sixpence an acre for manual labour, and something for 

 the wear and tear of the steam-engine and steel-wire- 

 rope, &c. The rope was much smaller than one's little 

 finger, say nine-sixteenths of an inch diameter. I have 

 often heard heavy-land farmers say that they should like 

 to have horses without feet ; this is actually the case 

 with steam, which cultivates without pressure or con- 

 solidation. 



Halkett's Guideway Steam Cultivator. — I 

 cannot pass by, in silence, Mr. Halkett's coble efforts 

 to effect the operations of the farm on a grand scale by 

 an entirely novel process. Having witnessed the opera- 

 tion, I was struck with the simplicity and unerring ac- 

 curacy of the work done, as well as by the application 

 of the whole power of the engine without rope, and with 

 a mere fractional friction. Every one who heard Mr, 

 Halkett's paper read before the Society of Arts, must 

 have retired with a conviction that the subject was 



