124 Report on Steam CuUivation. [Reed. 



and the addition of improvements in the maehinery cost 180^. in 

 the 4 years. Interest and depreciation on 994^., the prime cost 

 of the apparatus, inclusive of rope, saj at 12^ per cent, per 

 annum, came to 47(3?. in the 4 years. Then we have the item 

 of wire-rope worn out. The original 800 yards cost 84/. ; 

 450 yards, added in two years' time, cost 47?. 5s. ; and from 

 personal inspection of this 1250 yards, we estimate the present 

 value at one-third, or 43/. 155. ; thus leaving 87/. lO.s. as the 

 total expense of rope consumed during the 4 years. The entire 

 outlay for steam work then (besides the manual labour already 

 included in the general account) is 1142/. 10s. in the 4 years. 



" Ten horses, in place of the engine, would have cost about the 

 same ; but they would have made up only the old force of 20 

 horses, that kept the staple shallow and the crops foul. Twenty 

 horses, in lieu of the engine, would have cost double the money ; 

 but even if they could have cleaned the farm, it was utterly 

 beyond their ability to deepen the 5-inch staple to treble its 

 depth, and accomplish a light crumbly style of tillage, such as 

 now enables the corn to be sown early in a pulverulent seed-bed, 

 and green crops to grow where dead fallow reigned before. 



" That the steam-tillage has developed inherent fertility in the 

 soil, appears from the fact that almost all the white-straw 

 crop of 1864, and most of the roots too, together with 536 

 quarters of wheat, and about 300 tons of the straw of 1863, were 

 sold off the farm. The sale took place by public auction; and 

 the excellent character of the yield may be judged of from the 

 prices made. Thus 147 acres of wheat, with the straw as staked 

 out upon the land, sold for an average of 9/. Is. per acre ; 73 

 acres of barley, with the straw, sold for an average of 11. 19^. per 

 acre ; and 29 acres of oats sold for an average of 6/. lis. per acre. 



" It is certainly not high manuring that has produced the good 

 crops ; for Mr. Prout has not applied more than 640/. worth of 

 any purchased manure during the whole four years. And that a 

 consumption of sheep and cattle food has had little share in the 

 business, is evident from the circumstance that, in 1863, Mr. 

 Prout fattened only 58 oxen ; in 1864 he kept only a single cow ; 

 and he never has farmed until the present season either a sheep 

 or pig. The horses kept numbered but eight, as two of the ten 

 previously stated to have been employed represent the average of 

 teams hired. The head of stock on the farms in November con- 

 sisted of 14 bullocks feeding in barns and houses, 1 cow and 

 calf, and 8 horses, 



" Dr. Voelcker's analysis shows the soil to possess a practically 

 inexhaustible fund of fertility, though apparently of very ordinary 

 quality, like vast areas of similar land in Great Britain; and 

 Mr. Prout might probably jiursue with advantage a garden 



