Claeke,] Report on Steam Cultivation. 203 



Let us say 50Z; thus there is 240Z. sunk. The annuity which 

 this sum would buy for 10 years (calculated at 5 per cent.) is 

 .31/. 2.9. ; to this annual item add 21. 10s., the yearly interest of 

 the 50/. that the engine is worth at the end of the time, and you 

 have altogether 33/. 13s. per annum as the combined interest and 

 depreciation upon capital invested. This is equivalent to about 

 11 J per cent, on the original cost; or, in other words, if you put 

 down 5 per cent, as " interest," there will remain 6J per cent, as 

 " depreciation." However, the test of saleable value can hardly 

 be applicable to the case. A ten-years'-old engine, that might 

 sell for 50/., is worth far more than that to its owner, seeing that it 

 is still capable of doing all his work ; and it would realize a much 

 higher price if the purchaser were not uncertain about the real 

 condition of a second-hand engine. There is no regular market- 

 value for old engines, any more than there is for straw which a 

 tenant is forbidden to sell. In the case of the latter article we 

 are accustomed to distinguish between " commercial " and " con- 

 suming " value: and we should apply the same principle to 

 steam-power apparatus ; the question being, not " What could I 

 sell a ' second-hand set ' for, when one day's use of it alone may 

 have rendered it no longer ' new,' and has knocked off a fourth of 

 its market value?" but "What is it worth to me; or, in other 

 words, in what proportion is it a weaker and more hazardous 

 machine than when it came fresh from the maker ? " In the 

 earlier years of steam-ploughing perhaps it was fair to expect a 

 machine to be antiquated in a few years' time by the rapid pro- 

 gress of invention ; so that both Mr. J. Chalmers Morton, in his 

 numerous and exhaustive reports of " steam-farms " (see a selec- 

 tion from them in his ' Farmers' Calendar,' 21st edition, 1862), 

 and Mr. J. Algernon Clarke, in his ' Five Years' Progress of 

 Steam-Cultivation' (Journal, vol. xxiv., 1863), may have been 

 justified in guessing at 10 per cent, per annum on first cost, for 

 "depreciation" or "maintenance of value," besides the actual 

 "repairs," and 5 per cent, for "interest." In this year 1867, 

 however, the various forms of steam-tillage machinery are so 

 thoroughly established that, so far from their being likely to be 

 superseded and thrown aside as altogether worthless only ten 

 years after their purchase, we may fairly reckon that they will 

 last until worn out, or perhaps until piece-meal replacements of 

 new working parts, new boiler-plates, new tubes, &c., may be 

 considered as starting the apparatus new again, — the same in 

 identity, yet completely renewed in substance, like the old lady's 

 bellows or the Irishman's clasp-knife. That 10 per cent, is far 

 too heavy a charge, appears from the very fact of there being sets 

 of tackle manufactured ten years ago still working, and betraying 

 no sign of being now on their last legs. We have seen apparatus 



