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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



knew he might be told that rest rendered them better 

 fitted for work ; but to that he would reply, that the 

 steam-engine would eat nothing en Sundays while it 

 would be quite as ready as the horses were for work on 

 the following day (laughter). If 70 days were set 

 down for Sundays and wet days, there were virtually 

 ten weeks lost, and reckoning Ihe cost of a horse's food 

 at only 10s. ptr week, there was about £5 per annum 

 entirely lost. Multiplying the ^5 by 8, that being the 

 number of horses required for a farm of 200 acres, there 

 alone was a balance of ^40 per annum in favour of steam 

 as opposed to horse-power. Steam might be applied for 

 a great variety of purposes in agriculture. When he 

 read his paper before the club, he was laughed at, for ex- 

 pressing his conviction that a steam-engine might be em- 

 ployed in grubbing up a hedgerow. He would again 

 make a short quotation from his paper : — " From what 

 I have seen of the power of the machine which I have 

 constructed, I feel convinced that it might be applied to 

 many purposes. For instance, if I had sufficient time, 

 I meant to have used it to grub a hedge-row ; and I feel 

 confident that with the engine attached, it would pull up 

 the roots in the same manner that a dentist draws teeth." 

 Now, he had since applied steam successfully for such 

 purposes as that. With a five-horse engine he had pulled 

 up more than a mile of hedges, and no grub axe would 

 do the work so well. By the ordinary mode of grubbing, 

 it often happened that nearly half the roots were left in 

 the ground ; but there was no such defect where a steam 

 engine was used, and he should be happy for any gentle- 

 man present to come and witness how beautifully the 

 work was done on his own farm. He had also pulled 

 down hundreds of trees by means of the same agency. 

 As regarded his steam-cultivator, he must say that its 

 performances exceeded any that had been possible pre- 

 viously to its invention. The other day a gentleman visited 

 his farm when he was cultivating the soil with two engines, 

 a six-feet grubber going one way, and a six-feet broad- 

 share going the opposite way ; and after the soil was 

 broken up, he pulled a two-foot rule out of his pocket, 

 and pushed it with ease ten inches into the ground. That 

 showed what might be done by means of the steam- 

 cultivator. In conclusion, he would observe, let every 

 farmer who wished to engage in that kind of operation 

 take care that the tackle, or whatever might be used as 

 a medium, was that in which the power could be best ap- 

 plied and economized ; in other words, let him see that 

 the power of the engine was really applied, to the fullest 

 extent practicable, to the implement, and not lost in 

 running a number of puUies, and from an indirect 

 draught. To use a large engine to draw a small machine 

 was a great mistake in an economical point of view. 

 There was one subject which he wished to mention ere 

 he sat down, as regarded economy. He had no doubt 

 himself but their agricultural engines would in a few 

 years be made locomotive. He had brought a model of 

 an engine to show that Boydell's argument, that the 

 ground was the fulcrum of a locomotive engine, was cor- 

 rect; and it was of the greatest moment that the subject 

 should be settled amongst engineers, as a great advan*- 

 tag« i?ould he lost if the power to propel an eHgiije 

 should be applied ia the wrong plac«, 



Mr. Fowler (28, Coiuhill) had listened with great 

 interest to Mr. Mechi's paper, and considered it 

 well worthy of the attention of farmers. He agreed 

 with that gentleman that the average depth of cultiva- 

 tion on the heavy lands of this country was from 4 to 5 

 inches, hardly ever exceeding 5. Four horses were 

 equal to a draught of about 6 cwt., supposing them to 

 be in first-rate condition; but perhaps 5 cwt. was about 

 the average, and with the best assistance on the part of 

 the labourers, 5 inches was the outside depth of cultiva- 

 tion on heavy lands. By steiim-power, on the other 

 hand, they got a draught of 30 cwt., which was about 

 the utmost draught that could practically be applied to 

 the land. Moreover, they got by means of steam an 

 entirely new system of cultivation. There was many a 

 farmer who would not farm heavy land on any account; 

 but he believed that with steam power such land was 

 worth double what it was without that auxiliary, owing 

 to the simple fact that six times as much power might 

 be applied as could be previously. In heavy-land cul- 

 tivation a ten.Lorse engine would accomplish three miles 

 an hour, and do the work of 40 horses ; and unlike the 

 horses, it would do its work without at the same time 

 injuring the land. As regarded the economy of horses, 

 he would remark that with steam cultivation he had 

 seen only six horses employed where twelve used to 

 be employed, and ten horses where fourteen horses and 

 fourteen oxen had been used. If an additional number 

 of horses was required in the autumn, it would be easy to 

 purchase them, and if they had afterwards to be disposed 

 of, the season would be at hand when horses were in great 

 demand. He did not suppose that the time would ever 

 arrive when the use of horse power on farms would en- 

 tirely cease, but he believed that there would soon be a 

 great diminution in the numbers employed throughout 

 the year. As regarded the practical adaptation of 

 mechanical appliances to steam, his own impression was 

 that, after a series of experiments, which were exceed- 

 ingly costly, the manufacturers had arrived, as it were, 

 at a standing point, and that they could now offer to the 

 farmer a machine which might be worked well with a 

 moderate amount of skill, and also of wear an 1 tear ; 

 and the meeting would agree with him that on the 

 mechanical appliances must depend the question how 

 far steam might be made to supersede horse- power. 



Mr. Halkett (80, Chancery-lane) said— As Mr. Fowler 

 has been so good as to allude to my system of steam cultiva- 

 tion, and Mr. Meclii has done me the honour to refer to it iu 

 commendatory terms, allow me to make a few remarks upon 

 the subject. My system consists of laying dowu rails over 

 the farm, the cultivating implements, and carts for the carriage 

 required on the farm, travelling upon these rails. Both the 

 follovvisg advantages are thus gained to an extreme — the 

 softest and deepest bed for the plants, and the hardest road 

 for the passage of carts and implements. Under the present 

 system of agriculture, the ground being more and more cul- 

 tivated by the modern requirements of deep and fine tillage, of 

 which we have heard so much to-night, is becoming more than 

 ever an unfit medium for the economic cartage of the farm ; 

 whilst, on the other baud, the trampling and pressure iu cart- 

 age, and all the^other operations of thefyear, annuls, as weli 

 a» man can do it, the effect aimed at, of keeping the grouaJ 

 ia a state suitable to the plants. Again, the system assures 



