Reed.] Report on Steam Culiivation. 195 



thrashing-, the fields below 10 acres must be enlarged, and areas 

 of 30 and 40 acres become more the rule than the exception. 

 When it is learned that in the cultivation of small fields a ^ cwt. 

 of coal is consumed per acre beyond the quantity co.isumed in 

 large fields, and that, as in Mr. Bott's case (No. 12), 1 acre is 

 lost per day as compared with the work done by Mr. Impey in 

 larger fields, there will be natural hesitation to commence under 

 such disadvantages. It may be objected that a blow is here aimed 

 not only at the hedgerows, but at the timber, and that the timber 

 is essential as a protection to the land, besides being a source of 

 profit. This view of the question has not escaped us. We are 

 far from desiring to denude the country of timber, but we think 

 it is possible to remove it from a position where it is of small 

 value and of great detriment, and so dispose of it as to be not 

 only more ornamental, but better calculated to check the winds 

 which sweep a country from known quarters. If the trees which 

 obstruct progressive agriculture were banished from the hedge- 

 rows and ornamental clumps, plantations and belts, adopted with 

 judgment and taste, we conceive that all parties would be best 

 served, and the eye of the lover of woodland beauty by no means 

 offended. 



There are other hindrances, such as the want of a better 

 system of tenant-right, leases with stringent covenants, and 

 customs of the country, which may have been admirable 

 when they were adopted, but are far from being adapted to the 

 pre.sent times. Thus the 4-course system, though well calculated 

 to raise an unproductive district to a fair state of productive- 

 ness, is not adapted to a state of things in which men find it to 

 their interest to invest 12/., 14/., or even 20/. an acre in their 

 hired lands ; " the barley is sure to go down after the root-crop, 

 and two white straw crops in succession are necessary." It 

 is the absence of these favouring circumstances which tends at 

 present to check the progress of steam. 



There are hindrances also on the part of the tenant-farmer ; 

 foremost, as a rule, we are sorry to acknowledge, is the want of 

 capital for the first outlay. Other obstacles, such as his pre- 

 judices, his lack of mechanical knowledge, and his timidity, have 

 nearly had their day ; for he has found himself shifting with the 

 times and obliged to accommodate his notions to them. 



Having endeavoured briefly and generally to express our views 

 on these two questions, we now propose to make a few practical 

 observations on other matters. 



Our observations would lead us to advise no farmer to embark 

 in steam-machinery who has so little knowledge of mechanical 

 detail as to be obliged to depend entirely upon his labourers. 

 He should, at least, know enough of the construction of an 



02 



