246 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Clakke. 



we may put the cost of the machinery at lO*. a day's work. 

 The engine does all the thrashing, corn-grinding, and chaff- 

 cutting at home, but no work off the farm. The daily working 

 expenses in the field are as follows — half a ton of coal, in a day 

 of 10 hours, costs Is. 6d., and oil Is. A boy with the water-cart 

 leads water from a brook or from ponds ; though in several fields 

 it is practicable to place the engine close to the water — say 4^. 

 for this item. The engineer has Ss. 6d., and the windlass-man, 

 two anchor-men, ploughman, and porter-man, 2s. each, making 

 135. 6d. When not cultivating, they are employed at ordinary 

 farm-work. Removal, for a moderately short distance, occupies 

 4 men and 8 horses for about 4 hours, and allowing for a shift 

 every fourth day, the cost would be about 3^. upon each day's work. 

 The working expenses are thus about 29«. per day ; the total, 

 with cost of apparatus, about o9s. per day. When a full day's 

 work is done, and no "stoppages" occur, 4 acres are ploughed 

 or " dug," or 7 acres cultivated. This is a low rate of perform- 

 ance, making the tillage correspondingly dear ; that is, 5^. Id. an 

 acre for cultivating, up to nearly 10s. per acre for ploughing. 

 Nevertheless, on Mr. Turner's heavy soil the advantages of 

 steam-power husbandry are great enough to tell in favour even 

 of work far from being so expeditious and cheaply executed as 

 we find it in many other cases. For, instead of 14 horses, only 

 9 are now kept ; and the annual saving in the keep, maintenance, 

 attendance, tradesmen's bills, implements, «Scc., for 5 horses, 

 taken at 44Z. per horse, must amount to more than the whole 

 yearly outlay upon steam tillage. Whether or not it could be 

 done at a cheaper rate, it costs altogether no more than the horse- 

 work which it has superseded. 



As to actual benefits, Mr. Turner has increased the acre- 

 age of his root-crops, growing and feeding-off roots where pre- 

 viously the system had been to dead-fallow every fourth year. 

 His crops generally are also more productive ; though this is 

 not entirely due to the mechanical tillage, seeing that much 

 artificial food and manure have been used for years, doubtless 

 with fertilizing effect. 



The drainage of this heavy land is " certainly more effectual," 

 while, " in an ordinary dry season," says Mr. Turner, " root crops 

 can now be eaten off where, without steam, they could not be 

 f/row7i.'' 



No, 58. Mr. Owen Wallis, of Overstone Grange, North- 

 ampton. Mr. Wallis — occupying a home farm of 375 acres 

 arable, with 28 of pasture, and also a large grazing farm at a 

 distance — has had five years' experience of steam cultivation. 

 The soil of the largest part of the farm is a clay-loam, with a 

 subsoil of calcareous clay — a drift-clay, containing flint and 



