234 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke. 



ride, 13 feet in width, runs through most of the fields which do 

 not abut on these roads. The water-supply is in ponds in most 

 of the fields. Mr. Horrell has not been tenant here sufficiently 

 long to say much about changes and augmentations of cropping. 

 The drainage, he says, is certainly rendered more effective by the 

 steam tillage ; but still the soil is too heavy for feeding off roots 

 with sheep to advantage. Managing on the 4-course system, he 

 keeps 10 horses, or 5 less than the farm employed prior to steam 

 cultivation ; and in general he " is very well satisfied with the 

 apparatus." 



No. 51. Messrs. James and Frederick Howard, Bedford. 

 It is not necessary here to relate the history of Messrs. 

 Howards' reclamation and remodelling of the Clapham Park 

 and Green Farms, and their improvement of the Hoo Farm 

 (all now classed together as " The Britannia Farms "), in the 

 neighbourhood of Bedford. Clearing of forest-timber and under- 

 wood, abolition of old boundaries, throwing field to field and 

 planting new fences, the formation of direct hard-mettle roads in 

 place of winding clay lanes or across newly-opened country, the 

 deep underdrainage of heavy soil, the laying down of new grass 

 and cleansing of old tillage-land, have all been executed here with 

 an expedition and completeness which may well stand out as an 

 example of what should be done, and how it should be done, to 

 prepare an estate for the full development of steam cultivation. 

 Ten miles of hedge-rows have vanished before an army of work- 

 men, all stubbing by the piece ; and their removal has added just 

 10 acres to the area of Clapham Farm. Sound roadways enable 

 the master-spirit of the tillage-work — the steam-engine — to peram- 

 bulate where it will, uphill and down, in almost any weather, 

 into any of the enclosures ; and when there, though it is 

 stationary with a windlass while working, it cultivates fields of 

 10, 20, 30, and up to 55 J acres " at one setting down." The 

 drainage of almost every field has been designed with a view 

 to supply the engine, a pond or open tank at almost every 

 site occupied by the engine during the tillage of the whole 

 estate receiving the drain-water, retaining supplies at all seasons, 

 and letting only the " overflow " pass away by the mains which 

 ultimately conduct it to the Ouse. At the principal farmstead 

 a reservoir has been excavated, which contains half a million 

 gallons, the cost of digging being 50^. 



The extent of arable is 445 acres, all heavy land. The Hoo 

 Farm presents a deep staple, 10 to 14 inches in thickness, upon 

 homogeneous clay. Yet, before steam culture was practised, there 

 were but a few inches of staple soil ; the difference, on digging in 

 a field and upon the headland edge, where the deep work has not 



