20G Report on Steam Cultivation. [Clarke. 



The soil is a deep loam free from stones, restincr in some 

 places upon a clayey subsoil with drift gravel below that, while 

 in other parts of the farm the loamy staple lies directly upon the 

 gravel ; and a small slice of the farm is " skirty," that is, par- 

 taking of the peaty nature of the Fen. Much of the land has 

 been pipe-drained ; the gravel subsoil, however, is very porous, 

 so that ridge and furrow are unnecessary ; and (a convenience for 

 steam cultivation) water can be obtained anywhere by digging, 

 at 6 or 8 feet from the surface. Mr. Edwards has, of course, 

 provided himself with field wells for the use of the engine. We 

 should add that the annual rainfall here is about 24 inches. 

 Pair-horse ploughing has always been practised on this farm, 

 the average depth of the tillage before steam-power was used 

 having been 4 inches ; and this, says Mr. Edwards, was " hard 

 work, often having to wait for rain," 



In 1858, when steam tillage was in favour only Avith men of 

 advanced ideas or (like the occupier of Tanholt Farm) of a 

 decided taste for mechanics, Mr. Edwards ventured upon the 

 purchase of a set of the Woolston tackle, consisting of a four- 

 wheeled windlass, ropes, porters, &c., and a three-tined and a 

 five-tlned grubber, to which he added a Fowler 3-furrow plough, 

 with a Hornsby's 8-horse portable engine ; the cost of the whole 

 being 500/. No difficulty was experienced in teaching the 

 ordinary farm-labourers to manage the apparatus ; excepting 

 that, just at first, the men not being up to their work, " murdered " 

 the rope. The engine-driver (John Bugg, a veteran of seventy- 

 seven years), had previously driven a steam thrashing-machine. 

 The hands necessary to work the cultivator are three men and 

 three lads, that is, one engine-driver, one windlass-man, one 

 man on the implement ; two lads at Is. 2d. per day each, to 

 shift the anchors, and one boy to move the rope-porters. In no 

 other instance have the Committee found such light hands 

 employed to shift the anchors and snatch-blocks ; and this cir- 

 cumstance, coupled with the single boy for the porters, points to 

 tillage operations conducted without any very great strain, and 

 to anything but a rapid rate of performance. However, the 

 apparatus is "manned" at the low figure of 10^. a day, the 

 ordinary labourer's wage in the district being, 2s. a day. Of 

 course, the cultivating men are employed in various occupations 

 on the farm, when the steam-engine is not going. That the 

 steam work is not of a very heavy description appears from the 

 fact that the single-cylinder 8-horse Hornsby engine is run at 

 only 50 lbs. pressure, consuming 8 cwts. of coal (at 15^. per ton 

 delivered in the field), and evaporating " three loads of water " 

 in a day. Mr. Edwards undertakes large-sized plots with one 

 laying-out of the rope. We saw a field of 28 acres, which is 



