Claeke.] Report on Steaiii Cultivation. 221 



duplicate anchors. The hands are ordinary farm-labourers : 

 engineman at os., windlassman "Is. 6r/., ploughman 2^. Ad., two 

 anchormen 2s. 4c/. each, and two porter-boys and a watercart- 

 boy at Is. Ad. each per day. Water is always found close 

 at hand in ponds on the farm. Oil costs Is. 2f/. per day, and 

 coal, at 21s. a ton, costs about 8s. a-day. "Shifting" takes 

 place about twice a week, occupying (J horses 4 to G hours each 

 time. 



We have said that G horses displaced, or 264?. a year saved in 

 draft-labour, go to the credit of the engine. The manual-labour 

 account of the farm has been increased rather than diminished ; 

 but the main results of steam culture (though not specially pointed 

 in this case) are satisfactory from the decided augmentation of 

 produce. 



No. 44. Mr. James Williams, of Shippon, near Abingdon, 

 Berkshire, a land -valuer and agent as well as farmer, occupies over 

 GOO acres, chiefly arable ; most of the land stone-brasb, commonly 

 thought unadapted for steam culture, seeing that its tillage is 

 ordinary pair-horse ploughing at 5 inches deep. The system of 

 husbandry is the 4-course, occasionally with barley after the last 

 wheat-crop. In 1858 Mr. Williams purchased a 10-horse double- 

 cylinder portable, Avith Howard's tackle, and has since added a 

 Fowler 3-furrow plough. And this has enabled him to sell off 

 6 horses ; the apparatus being also sent out on contract-work, 

 besides every year tilling about one-third the area of his own 

 farm. What is Mr. Williams' present force of teams we did not 

 hear ; but some extra horses are required for occasional!}' taking 

 about the country several steam thrashing-machines, which he 

 lets out. 



The prices charged for steam-tillage work are 14s. an acre for 

 grubbing once over, and 20s. for grubbing twice over, the farmer 

 finding coal and water — the latter a light item, from the circum- 

 stance of water being obtainable anywhere in the locality at a 

 few feet depth from the surface. Of course it would be hardly 

 fair to detail all the several expenses involved in this work, 

 because some neighbours might and would then say. Why do you 

 charge us so much per acre, when actual cost to you is very con- 

 siderably less? not making allowance for the distinction between 

 a man's working for them and working for himself, for the dif- 

 fering risks of Avear and tear under the two circumstances, and 

 for the necessary laying by of a good annual sum with Avhich to 

 buy a new fire-box every now and then, pay for new parts neces- 

 sitated by some unlooked-for accident, and ultimately replace a 

 worn-out " set " by a new one. 



But Mr. Williams speaks of comparatively few breakages, 

 while the regular repairs have not been very heavy. The wear of 



