222 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke. 



rope — the principal item in the damage to the machinery — he has 

 found to be as nearly as possible Is. per acre. The common rate 

 of performance is 5 to 7 acres per day with the 3-tined cultivator, 

 or 7 to 10 acres with the 5-tiner. In a very long- day a much 

 larger quantity has been got over. With the 3-furrow plough, 

 4 or 5 acres are turned over in a day ; this having been shallow 

 work for wheat-sowing. 



Autumn breaking-up of stubbles answers admirably; but Mr. 

 Williams attaches quite as much importance to ploughing in this 

 season ; in fact, he averred to us that one of the most valuable 

 uses of the steam-tackle is in ploughing over wheat-stubbles, to 

 lie through the winter and then to be cross-cultivated by steam in 

 the spring for barley. He has obtained an increased yield of 

 corn on a steam-cultivated seed-bed ; he also now gets double 

 the former weight of roots per acre, and necessarily, after more 

 roots, he has more corn, and so on, through the rotation. But 

 then this result is not all referable to the employment of a steam- 

 horse ; unquestionably the 300 fine Berkshire hogs that we saw 

 fatting upon buckwheat (of which cheap imported feeding-grain 

 and other corn 1000 quarters are annually consumed in these 

 farm-premises), have something to do with the matter. Mr. 

 Williams declared that he would never be without a steam culti- 

 vator on that or a like farm ; and moreover told us that on a 

 deep-loam farm, a former pupil of his has found " every inch 

 deeper" equivalent to an artificial manuring — an acquisition 

 likely to be experienced only for a time, though this may last 

 through a considerable course of years. 



(No. 45.) His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim 

 Palace, Oxfordshire, has employed a steam cultivator since 

 October, 1861, upon stone-brash light and medium-loam land, 

 having a subsoil of rubbly rock. The extent under occupation 

 fluctuates according to what farms happen to be in His Grace's 

 hands ; the present area being 760 acres arable, besides 1590 

 acres of grass. The surface is tolerably level ; and the in- 

 closures vary from 35 to 40 acres. No new roads or other 

 alterations have been made purposely to expedite field-work by 

 the engine. 



The apparatus consists of a Howard's 5-tined cultivator, with 

 windlass, &c., driven by a 10-horse portable engine; which has 

 broken up an average of about 9 acres per day, and over 1000 

 acres in each year; this amount of work occupying 130 days in 

 each year, the days lost by bad weather being 9, and lost by 

 breakages 3 days. This is a very concise statement, but valuable 

 because of the scarcity of such accurate details ; and it is very 

 satisfactory that so great a breadth of work was got through with 

 such a comparatively small amount of hindrance. Of course, 



