IFet Season of 1872 on Steam- Cultivation. 195 



take the heavy clay land first. Field No. 1 : 39 acres barley ; 

 stubble was manured with 13 tons per acre, then ridge-ploughed 

 and subsoiled by steam-power 10 inches deep, at a cost of 

 8.S'. dd. per acre. It is now ready for planting with beans 

 without any further operation for its nineteenth crop under 

 steam cultivation without any fallow whatever. Yes, and I 

 have had, like the horse farmers, the wet seasons, including 

 those of 1871 and 1872, to contend against, yet it is clean. 

 My way of cleaning is to hand-pick in the winter all my ridged 

 work, the man walking between the ridges. This land was 

 walked and picked by one man at the rate of from 2 to 3 

 acres per day at a cost of about Is. per acre ; therefore as this 

 land is walked and picked twice in three years, it is kept clean at 

 a cost of 2s. per acre for three years. Its average yearly produce, 

 wet years included, is not as little as 32 bushels per acre ; last 

 year's crop was quite that, therefore I am on this land a gainer 

 of 12 bushels of corn per acre as compared with its produce 

 under horse culture. Now I will compare on like land with the 

 horse farmer. The wet years of 1871 and 1872 have caused 

 heavy clay-land to be fallowed in many directions two years in 

 succession, viz., in 1872 and 1873, which will bring the 

 average produce on such farms under 20 bushels per acre a year. 

 The very best clay-land farmers who have been farming upon 

 the summer green-crop system or roots for the winter, have been 

 driven to a dead fallow in 1873, and it is generally known that 

 the two wet years caused the whole country to be less clean (to 

 say the least of it) from end to end, hence the reduced crops in 

 1873 Avith a much diminished total produce throughout the 

 country. Now take field No. 2 : 30 acres wheat-stubble manured 

 at the rate of 7 tons per acre for barley, then ridged and subsoiled 

 10 inches deep, at a cost of 8^. 9r/. per acre, since which the 

 ridges have been hand-picked and then split by horse-power, 

 the latter operation costing 4^. per acre. It Avill be hand- 

 picked again. It is the best heavy-land tilth I ever walked over. 

 Total cost of seed bed, excepting hand-picking, 12s. dd. per 

 acre worked 10 inches deep. This land is a portion of that 

 bought in 1869, which was then sadly out of condition, needing 

 draining and cleaning all over ; that has been done, excepting 

 some remnants of the latter. The cropping since 1869 has 

 been two crops of wheat and two crops of beans, and now it is 

 going in for barley. Its average produce has been 32 bushels 

 per acre ; my last year's wheat was quite that, while in 1869, the 

 year I bought it, the average all over that farm Avas not 20 bushels 

 per acre. This increased produce of 12 bushels per acre yearly 

 is due to steam cultivation, for until the last two years, I have 

 used no other manure than the straw tand hay produce of my 



o 2 



