238 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke, 



cates of steam culture have recommended — or a revolution in 

 husbandry like that exemplified with extraordinary success, though 

 in a small way, at Woolston. Mr. Bignell's practice of grub- 

 bing and trenching, in place of ploughing (see farm No. 48), 

 is one great deviation from the time-honoured track : here, on the 

 Britannia Farms, we have it on a more important scale. Scarcely 

 any horse turn-over ploughing is done ; nor is the steam tillage 

 limited to smashing up stubbles, or the turn-over ploughing of leas. 

 And from the practice here we learn how mistaken is the view 

 that a steam-cultivating tackle is to be used merely (or even 

 mainly) as a supplementary assistant to the farm-team, and general 

 forwarder of the heavy work of a farm. In fact, in the course of 

 our journeys, we gradually came to classify (in our own minds) the 

 users of steam-apparatus according as they looked upon it as an 

 "auxiliary" to horses, or as "the slave of the farm ;" and when 

 we lighted upon a man using his engine only to clean stubbles in 

 autumn, and occasionally to " cross " again in spring, upon such 

 land as we had seen made into seed-beds for almost all crops by 

 men of larger insight into the powers of steam, we called it a case 

 of " steam culture made easy to small minds." How did Messrs. 

 Howard prepare for their mangold crop ? The wheat-stubble was 

 not smashed up and then left for horse tillage in spring, but at 

 once ridged by steam — the ridges 27 inches wide; this being 

 done by a double-breasted plough-body fixed in the cultivator- 

 frame, in place of the tines, while a subsoiling tine on the same 

 implement rooted up the bottom of the open trenches, the 

 ridging and subsoiling being accomplished in one operation. 

 This lay all winter for the frosts and weather to make into the 

 finest tilth imaginable ; and in spring manure was applied, the 

 ridges were torn down by a cross cultivation by steam, and 

 the seed-bed was ready for the mangolds. Of course the 

 ground must be clean to admit of cheap, quick tillage like this. 

 Another field was done as follows: — The oat-stubble was 

 forked over by hand to get out tufts of couch, farmyard- 

 manure was applied, then the steam-cultivator smashed up the 

 field, and, after lying some time, the rough fallow was ridged into 

 27-inch wide ridges (or "drills") by horses. In spring came a 

 cross-cultivation by steam, the land was harrowed, and the man- 

 gold-seed drilled in. Messrs. Howard steam-grub their clover- 

 leas for wheat, doing this in the summer, early enough for 

 the land to get sufficiently firm at bottom before sowing time 

 comes ; finding that, when this point is attended to, the wheat- 

 roots do not meet with the hollow bottom so difficult to be 

 avoided except by first-rate and closely-tucked ploughing. In 

 fact, this work being done in June and July makes a " bastard 

 fallow." 



