Claeke.] Report on Steam Cultivation. 239 



No. 52. Mr. J. C. Robinson, of Stevington, near Bedford, 

 occupies 400 acres arable, with 200 acres of pasture ; part of the 

 surface flat, some very hilly ; the soil generally a very heavy clay 

 indeed, and the subsoil gault or drift chalk-stone. The fields 

 range in size from 5 to 42 acres, and have been slightly altered in 

 figure to make way for steam culture ; but the two or three smallest 

 inclosures are still worked only by horses. A practical instance, 

 this, of the necessity for providing fields with enough elbow-room 

 in them for the new motive-power. Good road facilities already 

 existed, so that no expense has been incurred in laying out 

 new ones. 



Mr. Robinson's experience extends over seven years. He 

 worked a Smith's cultivator for three years, and then, seeing that 

 his neighbour, Mr. Pike (he says), could " break up his land and 

 form a good seed-bed by once going over " with a Howard culti- 

 vator, whilst he "was obliged to go twice over his land," he 

 purchased the Bedford implement. The 8-horse engine cost 

 255/., and the apparatus 250/., everything included ; that is, 505/. 

 The repairs of the apparatus have been " a new rope, a few years 

 back, costing 66/., four or five snatch-blocks, and a few rope- 

 porters, — say 100/. altogether." The repairs of the engine have 

 been between 30/. and 40/. ; but Mr. Robinson says that, as " the 

 engine does more other work by far than cultivating," he " can- 

 not put above one-third of cost of engine repairs to the culti- 

 vating." The number of acres cultivated in a year is not stated ; 

 but this proportionate division of these repairs is evidently justi- 

 fiable when we know that the tackle is used solely upon this farm 

 of 400 acres arable, while Mr. Robinson states that the engine is 

 used to thrash the corn of 1000 acres in each year, and he also 

 employs it about one day in a fortnight to grind corn and cut chaff. 

 The " repairs," then, due to the steam cultivation of a 400-acre 

 farm, during more than half-a-dozen years, have been about 112/. : 

 to which we may probably add a few pounds for light repairs 

 done by the blacksmith. The whole of the maintenance may 

 have cost say 20/. a year ; the interest upon the cost price of the 

 apparatus 250/., and upon one-third that of the engine 85/., or 

 335/., at 5 per cent, is 16/. 155. ; the depreciation, at the same 

 rate upon the same sum minus the cost of the original rope and 

 wearing parts, say upon 250/., is 12/. 10s. ; amounting altogether 

 to 49/. 55., which is the whole yearly cost of the machinery for 

 cultivating the 400-acre heavy-land farm. This in itself is a 

 valuable piece of evidence, although we have not the data for 

 making a calculation of the expense per day's work or per acre ; 

 because it tells the practical farmer of a similar occupation, that 

 investing capital in such an apparatus will be little more serious 

 than keeping an extra horse, with all the outgoings that belong 



