^06 The Injluence of the 



brought absolute ruin on not a few, great distress on many, and 

 even the most wealthy must feel it severely." When fields are 

 deluged with rain and all tillage is rendered impossible, the 

 farmer who has horses eating their heads off in enforced idleness 

 in his stable is in a far worse plight than the inan whose steam- 

 horse never eats except when it is at work, and who knows that 

 though he may for a while lose the interest of the capital he has 

 invested, he will be better able than his neighbours to make up 

 for arrears of work as soon as the land is fit for cultivation. In 

 former days, when the use of oxen in agriculture was much more 

 common than it now is, the advocates of horse-power often urged, 

 as one of its great advantages, that when horses took the place of 

 oxen on a farm, its whole pace was quickened, and the agricul- 

 tural mind was stirred to more activity. A similar advantage 

 may be claimed for steam as a motive power. An energetic 

 management is everywhere necessary to secure the full advantages 

 afforded by steam-power. Such energy shows itself most con- 

 spicuously amid difficulties that press equally heavily upon all, 

 and there is reason for thinking that the advantages which steam- 

 power confers upon a farmer were rather increased than diminished 

 in the wet season of 1872. 



From most of the Reports that have been printed I have 

 omitted the replies given to the following questions : — 



No. 2. Has deep tillage enabled you to dispense with open loater- 

 f arrows 9 Has it in any case obviated the necessity of draining 

 the land 9 



No. 3. Have you found steam cultivation hasten or retard the 

 commencement of harvest ? 



The replies received need not detain us long ; by far the 

 greater number of them give an affirmative to the first part and 

 a negative to the second part of question 2. Indeed, the inquiry 

 whether deep tillage has ever made draining unnecessary may 

 seem to some readers itself unnecessary : and the reply " of 

 course not," received in one instance, probably expresses the 

 thought of many whose answers were less brusque. Yet cases 

 are to be found, although they are of rare occurrence, where 

 land that seemed to require draining has been made compara- 

 tively dry by deep cultivation. A case of this sort has come 

 under my observation on a farm on the Surrey Hills near 

 Reigate. A stiff clay, with flints overlying the chalk to a 

 depth varying from three to four feet, when cultivated by horses 

 frequently had water standing in the furrows ; a single deep culti- 

 vation by steam-power so stirred the first 12 inches and shook 

 the clay below, that, in the following winter, the rain, as it fell, 

 rapidly found its way into the chalk below, and the land was 

 benefited more than it could have been by any amount of 



