198 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Reed. 



Our opinion is that the presence of a 10-horse power steam- 

 engine on a farm ought to reduce the number of horses formerly 

 kept to a pair for every 100 to 120 acres arable. 



Perhaps we can hardly limit the precise number of acres on 

 which we should recommend the purchase of a steam apparatus, 

 but our impression, from what we have seen, is that there should 

 be 350 acres arable of heavy land, or 500 acres of lighter soil ; 

 but some are guided by the employment they have for the engine 

 at other work, 



Howard Reed, 



Secretary to the Committee. 

 John J. Hemsley, 



Shelton, Neioark, Notts. 

 John Hickin, 



Dunchurch, Rugby. 



Me. J. A. Clarke's Eeport. 



Report of the 2nd Inspection Committee deputed hy the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England to inquire into the Results 

 of Steam Cultivation in the Cou7ities of Northumherlarid, York, 

 Lincoln, Nottingham, Stafford, Salop, Flint, Montgomery, Wor- 

 cester, Warivick, Gloucester, Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, 

 Oxford, Bucks, Bedford, and Northampton. 



The experience of some 140 practical farmers upon an area of 

 66,000 acres arable, — consisting of holdings of all sizes, from 

 less than 200 up to 2500 acres, and averaging 536 acres each ; em- 

 bracing a great diversity of soils, and situated in the most varying 

 climates, from the droughty east to the rainy west, from the 

 chilly north to the sunny south ; an experience derived from four 

 up to ten years' employment of all the different forms of apparatus 

 now in use, under every system of working, and with every style 

 of management ; an experience also, for the most part, investi- 

 gated upon the spot by ten business men, whose names and repu- 

 tation are staked upon the truthfulness and impartiality of their 

 Reports, — ought to establish the success or demonstrate the 

 failure of steam tillage in this kingdom. And the Society's 

 munificent outlay upon the Inquiry will be sanctioned by results, 

 if only a small percentage of its Members and of the proprietors 

 and tenants of land still under horse culture shall be led by the 

 mass of evidence concentrated in the three Reports to treat their 

 fields as well as their produce by the power of the steam-engine. 



