240 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke. 



to liim. Whether the actual working expenses make the steam- 

 horse dear or profitable is very easily arrived at. Five men and 

 two boys are employed, nearly always by the acre, getting 2*-, to 

 3^. per acre, "and beer." Of coal, costing 18^. ^d. per ton, 

 7 cwts. per day is the common consumption ; though 9 or 10 

 cwts. have been burned upon very hard work. As the acreage 

 cultivated is 5 to 7 acres per day, "more when the weather is 

 favourable," the coal costs on an average say \s. Gd. an acre. 

 Oil is probably a matter of 2d. an acre. The engine drinks 

 four one-horse-loads of water per day ; say at a cost of Gd. an 

 acre. Removal every third day or so with the steam-hands and 



5 or 9 horses, occupying two hours, if to an adjoining field — a 

 much longer time if to a distance or if with fewer horses — will cost 

 say about 2s. Gd. per day, or about Ad. per acre. The whole 

 working expenses thus amount to about bs. dd. per acre. Can 

 this be otherwise than wonderfully cheap ; " very heavy clay, 

 indeed," steam-cultivated for bs. 9d. an acre, together with a 

 yearly sum equivalent to little inore than the expense that 

 would be involved b}^ an additional cart-horse ? It cannot exceed 

 what the cost of horse-power tillage would have been : pro- 

 bably it does not inuch exceed half, though, not knowing the 

 annual acreage steam-cultivated, we cannot positively say. But 

 while Mr. Robinson has obviously got into no heavy yearly out- 

 lay greater than he had before adopting steam culture, look at 

 what he is realizing as actual saving and profit. The farm- 

 team was 20 horses : seven years' experience warrants him in 

 keeping only 14 now ; and the banishment of six horses from the 

 farm, with a saving of 44/. each, lessens the yearly outgoings by 

 264/. And this is a small item in the gain; for Mr. Robinson 

 has been enabled by the steam-power to substitute beans and 

 tares, or other green crops, for bare fallows ; he has not increased 

 the acreage of his roots, but " has them better ; " while he " thinks 

 the crops generally have been better," which he attributes to 

 " more work being done in dry weather in early autumn." Of 

 course, he gets this yield-bringing early work done, because 



6 horses, that could turn over at most one acre and a half in a 

 day, have quitted the field for a machine that rives up and shat- 

 ters to pieces a deeper staple at the rate of four or five times that 

 acreage in a day; or, in other words, which accomplishes the 

 work not of 6, but of 24 to 30 horses. For the comparison 

 should not be between horse-grubbing and steam-grubbing, but 

 between horse-ploughing and steam-grubbing that is still more 

 effectual. 



On the subject of a resultant better drainage Mr. Robinson 

 says, " I think clay-land should never be moved at all only when 

 dry ; but a farmer cannot afford to keep horses to do it while in 



