204 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Clarke. 



liar to Mr, Holland's bulklings: not alone the cookino; of" chaff 

 ])y waste steam from a fixed engine, entering a chafl-receptacle 

 through a perforated iron bottom, or the raising and lowering of 

 the feeding-troughs in the cattle-boxes by a ratc:het-barrel and 

 chains, but more especially the appliance enabling one fixed 

 steam-engine to thrash most of the ricks where they stand 

 in the large rick-yard. A driving-shaft about 144 feet long is 

 mounted upon brackets outside the barn-wall, and under cover 

 of a projecting cave ; it carries a band-wheel opposite each open 

 space between two ricks, — that is, five of these riggers for ten 

 wide-steddled round stacks ; and a portable thrashing-machine 

 is driven by a belt from any of these wheels in turn. By this 

 contrivance (which has worked here for eleven years) the engine 

 in its house thrashes probably 400 quarters of corn in the rick- 

 yard. The remaining stacks in the additional plot of yard, being 

 out of reach of the shaft and belt, are knocked out by help of the 

 steam-ploughing engine. 



In conclusion, we may observe that, at the date of our visit 

 (middle of September) wet as the weather was and had been for 

 a long time, we found a clay-burned field lying in a splendid 

 tilth for wheat-seeding, with a broken-up staple soil now nearly 

 a foot deep, which is about double what it was under the regime 

 ol the 4-horse team and sledging-plough. 



No. 67. M. C. Randell, of Chadbury, Evesham, Worcester- 

 shire. Knowing this to be the tenth year of Mr. Randell's expe- 

 rience in steam culture, we expected a good lesson from him, 

 and, as this Report will show, we were favoured with exceedingly 

 valuable information. 



The farm of 430 acres arable, and 220 pasture, consists for the 

 most part of stiff blue-lias clay, some of the surface presenting 

 very steep acclivities ; while a small portion of sandy land, over- 

 lying a conglomerate gravel, reaches down into the rich valley of 

 Evesham, under the northern edge of "the Cotswold range;" 

 and from this lighter land lying next the public roads, passers- 

 by conclude the farm to be of less tenacious character than it is. 

 The average size of the inclosures is 22 acres, bounded by the 

 neatest of fences ; and there has been no necessity for remodelling 

 inclosures, stocking-up wasteful plantations, uprooting field- 

 timber, or laying out new roads, to give full play to the steam- 

 horse, as all this was done by Mr. Randell when he entered upon 

 the farm 28 years since. One great improvement effected long 

 since, and still in operation wherever requisite, is clay-burning. 

 We walked (or rather climbed) up a steep-hill field of clay, which 

 underwent this ameliorating process 25 or 26 years ago : tlie rye- 

 grass here was broken up by the steam-cultivator (able to mount 

 any gradient or dive into any hollow) in July, 1866, and the 



