454 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



^17 10s. per horse, or £175 for tlie ten. Hence, the 

 dispensing with ten horses saves £475 a year. But 

 these horses are not simply no further object of ex- 

 p'ense ; they have been turned into money, which must 

 be reckoned as yielding henceforth its 5 per cent, 

 interest to the farmer. Mr. Holland stated in a speech, 

 some time ago, that eight horses sold, realized £300 ; 

 so that the ten we may take as sold for £375 ; and 

 the interest upon this sum is £18 15s. per annum. The 

 case, then stands thus — Mr. Holland pays yearly 

 £237 7s. 6d. for steam tillage, and receives back (or 

 keeps in his pocket) every year £493 15s., which 

 would have been otherwise incurred in horse-labour. 

 Deducting one amount from the other, it appears that 

 a direct gain of ^£''256 7s. 6d. per annum is obtained by 

 the mere substitution of steam for half of the former 

 animal power, on rather less than 400 acres : this is 

 at the rate of 13s. an acre. 



So far, then, we find a considerable profit from 

 adopting the steam plough — deduced from Mr. Hol- 

 land's own figures, after he has had a sufficiently 

 lengthened experience to warrant his statements of ex- 

 penditure and work done. If we stopped here we 

 should have shown ample cause why steam culture 

 should be introduced upon all strong-land farms of 

 three or four hundred acres extent. But is the profit 

 ■we have arrived at, all the gain ? Is it half of the 

 advantage — the other not so easy, however, to compute 

 in figures ? We know that ingenious calculations may 

 bring out conjectural profits so great and astonishing 

 that the employers of steam ploughs themselves disown 

 anything like such marvellous expectations. Still, it 

 is unreasonable to deny prospective gains because they 

 may be of a rather large pattern. 



In the speech to which we have alluded, Mr. Holland 

 said that it took four horses to plough one acre a-day j 

 that is, the ten horses he has sold ofi" would have been 

 master of two-and-a-half acres per day. But the 

 steam plough, he says, turns over five acres a-day^ 

 just double. That is, one-half of his team has been 

 displaced by a power which is equal to the whole ; the 

 total tillage force of the farm being, therefore, increased 

 by one-half — so that what was three days' work is now 



finished in two. Everyone knows that saving of time is 

 a momentous point in the management of stiff soils— a 

 little extra rapidity of operations ensuring not only a 

 better produce, but often making all the difference be- 

 tween a fair crop and no crop at all. Shall we be 

 deemed too wild and enthusiastic in putting a money- 

 value upon this capability of accomplishing three 

 weeks' work in a fortnight ? Besides, what an advan- 

 tage there must be in keeping off land when unduly 

 moist, and sparing it that trampling which so consoli- 

 dates and injures clay soil, and damages the growth of 

 much cropping ! And, more than all, if either the theory 

 or practice of agriculture is worth anything as guides 

 in the matter, what a further increase of yield may be 

 certainly looked for from ploughing 8 to 10 inches 

 deep for roots (as Mr. Holland now does) and 6 inches 

 for corn crops, in place of the previous shallow cultiva- 

 tion ! The question, then, is this — Will the hastening 

 of spring tillage, the avoidance of poaching, and the 

 extra depth of staple be together equivalent to — say, 

 five tons more of roots per acre on the one hundred 

 acres of fallow ? At 8s. a ton for turnips and man- 

 golds, this would be a gain of 40s. per acre, or £200. 

 And in the two hundred acres of wheat and barley, will 

 the earlier seeding, the greater timeliness of operations, 

 according to the state of the weather, the more efiective 

 breaking and pulverization of the soil, the freedom from 

 treading, and the result of the deeper staple to that pre- 

 viously got for the roots, be altogether equivalent to 

 four bushels increase of yield per acre — say, a gain of 

 20s. an acre, or ^£200 ? Putting these sums together, 

 we should have £'400 to add to the £256 7s. 6d. of 

 direct pecuniary profit — making a total of about £656 

 per annum, or about 33s. an acre, won by the steam 

 plough ! Is there anything unreasonable in such an 

 increase as we have here attempted to put a money- 

 value upon ? And if Mr. Holland's four hundred acres 

 will yield a gain of £656 per annum, it would seem 

 that an estimate once oflTered in these columns, of Mr. 

 Langston's probable gain of £1,400 on eight hundred 

 acres, was not so foolishly extravagant after all. 

 Farmers will yet " right" themselves by the help of 

 steam power. 



THE FARMER IN THE FAIR. 



What precious things are said and written respecting 

 the capabilities and qualifications of the body of farmers 

 as men of sense and business ! Theirmental powers and 

 acquirements are estimated by the commercial and 

 trading public as decidedly far inferior to their own, and 

 who frequently put them down to the very lowest point, 

 i, €., as being " a slight remove only above the animals 

 they drive "—" almost as dull as the clods they culti- 

 vate " — "a sad dull race of men, true clod-hoppers " — 

 "the most ignorant class of the whole community " — 

 "whose talk is alone of bullocks and business." What 

 libellous assertions ! Why, my good reader, I am 

 ready to back this very body of farmers for good sound 



sense, intelligence, and judgment, against any other class 

 of men, of business habits, who conduct their own busi- 

 ness. They have not been standing idle and inert 

 amidst all the multitude of modern improvements ; and 

 as a class it will be found that they have contributed as 

 much to promote a nation's wealth and prosperity as any 

 other of our boasting classes. 



We are somewhat indignant at the slurs occasionally 

 cast upon us. We know that the Son of Sirach did 

 ask this question, i. e., " How can he get wisdom that 

 holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that 

 driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose 

 talk is of bullocks ?" And he goes on to say that, " He 



