186 Tlic Ivjliifnce of tlio 



This view of the case receives strong confirmation from a 

 letter which accompanied the more formal replies to my 

 -questions. Mr, Lowe says, " Having 2 engines, we, of course, 

 work with the direct pull one from the other. At one time I 

 thought of getting a windlass so as occasionally to use the 

 roundabout system, and in wet weather keep the engine off the 

 land ; but I have finally made up my mind that if our clay will 

 not carry the engines fairly well, we had much better not 

 plough at all. ... I do not consider steam-ploughing clieap on 

 any other ground than the superior quality of the work, and the 

 favourable mechanical condition in which the soil is left. We 

 never plough for less than Ki.?. an acre, and I do not consider 

 we could afford to lower the rate, for the cost of engine repairs is 

 very heavy. Coal and water added to 16s. must bring the 

 ploughing here to 20^. or i\s. at least. Only a very few of the 

 employers care about deep ploughing, they are afraid of bringing 

 up the subsoil. Not a little of the work is done for farmers 

 whose work is in arrears from a fresh entry on the farm or from 

 •other causes, and not from any great desire for steam-ploughing 

 in itself. There are others who, like myself, find they can grow 

 mangolds, beans, and spring crops much better than from horse- 

 ploughing ; but the wheat crop is not much, if at all, improved 

 on the average, and it is much more liable to lose plant and die 

 out after a frosty winter : in fact, 1 dare not plant wheat after 

 breaking up ley, on this ground, and I have been obliged mate- 

 rially to alter my farming. Deep ploughing suits beans 

 amazingly : I have often seen them 1 foot higher in the same 

 field after steam than after horse-ploughing. In the very dry 

 season of 1870 this was particularly observable : light ploughing 

 giving short ones, while after steam many were more than 5 

 feet high, with a produce of 40 bushels to the acre. The 

 average rent of our clay, undrained, is under 20s. per acre ; good 

 draining would add bs. or 6s. per acre, and the fertility raised 

 as it ought to be, by a continuance of good farming, would add 

 perhaps 5s. more per acre ; but men of capital will not look at 

 it unless from local circumstances they are induced to do so. 

 I hold between 700 and 800 acres of this poor land, partly my 

 own, partly in tenancy, and I have for more than forty years 

 never had less than oOO acres in occupation. The more I see 

 of steam cultivation the better I like it ; but I must have horses 

 as well, and make my own selection as to which to use. Steam 

 for the hard work and deep cultivation, but not for harrowing, 

 drilling, or licjht scarifying." 



From these extracts I think we may Infer that when Mr. 

 Lowe, with true public spirit, tells us of the bad effects that 

 followed tlie substitution of horse-power for steam in 1872, he 



I 



