Clarke.] Report on Steam Cultivation. 227 



the cheapness of the lot offered, the whole having been " met 

 with " for little more than the cost of a new steel rope, which 

 must have been procured for the old apparatus. 



In many light-land and other districts, now popularly supposed 

 to be unadapted for steam tillage, we have no doubt that the 

 machinery only requires a practical introduction, in order to win 

 its way gradually in all directions. At least, this is the history 

 of the rise and progress of steam-ploughing in many localities : 

 analogous to that of the artificial manure trade in many quarters 

 — a iew years ago boasting that their fertile soil did not need 

 guano for corn-crops, or anything of the sort beyond "a little 

 something to pop up the turnips into rough leaf out of the way 

 of the fly," and yet gradually prevailed upon to experiment until 

 (to our knowledge) those same districts now find agents in 

 uncommonly good commissions. 



Still we are of opinion that really light lands, where large 

 quantity per day, rather than quality of work, is the great point, 

 are waiting for wider implements, or perhaps for more than one 

 implement in work at once. We have seen farms (for instance, 

 Mr. Edmonds' and others) where 20 to 25 acres of cultivating 

 per day are done by a 14-horse engine ; this is at the rate of 120 

 to 150 acres in a week. The double-engine system might accom- 

 plish much more ; but before the engines can put out their full 

 power, they require implements taking a broader stripe at a 

 stroke. Why cannot an 8 or even a 10-feet wide cultivator be 

 made to work — jointed longitudinally, if you please, like a 

 certain make of harrows, so as to keep close to an always waving 

 surface? If a 6-feet implement can now till 20 or 25 acres in a 

 day, a 10-feet implement might just as well compass 30 to 40 

 acres per day, 200 acres a week, in the great light-soil inclosures 

 of some counties ! 



Obviously the double-engine arrangement alone can come 

 into play for such wholesale seven-league-booted campaigning as 

 this. The stationary-engine and windlass, shifted of necessity 

 about once a day and losing a quarter of a day in the process, 

 would Jose 6 or 7 acres every day, and be 30 to 40 acres behind- 

 hand at the end of a week, with no outlay saved to make the 

 cost per acre as low as that of the expeditious double-engine 

 work. 



One great impediment to steam culture on light lands requires 

 notice. Large farmers find that, where reaping-machines are 

 employed, there is ample Avork in harvest for all the horses 

 they now keep. Just at first there may be some to spare ; but 

 when once carting has fully commenced, then, with the aid of 

 one man and a boy, the reaper can be kept at work, and all the 



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