270 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke. 



he says, "Stick to your furrows," and if you must level ridg-es, 

 take care to have tlie course of the drains duly marked on a plan. 

 Where ridg-es are very high, it is an expensive process to flatten 

 them, though Mr. Randell will not say that, in course of time, it 

 may not answer. His own experience is, that laying a clay 

 quite flat does not answer ; there must be some water-furrows. 

 Where the land is "slightly arched" between the water-furrows, 

 he can steam-g-rub for wheat, without needing to plough after- 

 wards ; but he does not like to venture his wheat upon a surface 

 perfectly horizontal. This testimony, it should be remarked, is 

 applicable to a blue-lias clay in a locality having an average 

 rainfall of probably 30 inches. 



In reference to some of the points we have just named, the 

 folio wing^ letter from Mr. Randell (January 21st, 1867), is im- 

 portant. He says : — 



" My practice, since I adopted steam cultivation, has been to manure the 

 land intended i^or mangolds immediately after harvest; then smash it up, 

 the rougher the better, by Smith's 3-tined cultivator. If an opportunity 

 occurred of ploughing afterwards (by horses) during a frost, I have done so ; 

 otherwise the land has had no ploughing ; it has been only scarified in the 

 spring, to destroy surface weeds, first being looked over by men forking out 

 all couch grass. Tliis has been all the preparation for mangolds, which have 

 been then drilled on the flat with 1| cart-load of ashes from the sheep-sheds, 

 mixed with 3 cwts. per acre of superiihosphate of lime. They have been 

 afterwards top-dressed with 5 cwts. per acre of Peruvian guano, horse-hoed 

 in. The treatment for cabbages has been the same, as far as manuring and 

 smashing up the stubble-land. The plants are set by hand in October, as 

 soon as the clods will fall to mould under a pair of harrows. 



" So far, as to clay land. I have some lighter land on which turnips and 

 swedes are grown ; also on the flat, our climate not being moist enough for 

 ridging. These crops follow tares or early cabbages, planted on wheat-stubble 

 manured and ploughed (until last autumn) by horses. But having, last 

 summer, purchased a 3-furrow Fowler's plough, this work was done last 

 September by steam. Indeed, the last wet autumn quite changed my practice 

 as to steam cultivation. In none of the nine previous years, during which I 

 have used Smith's cultivator, have I had reason to think any other implement 

 necessary ; but in the last wet season it was entirely useless. ' Smashing up' 

 will only do when the land is dry enough to burst up in all forms ; if the 

 tines cut, not burst, the soil only falls back to its original place, and the land 

 becomes more wet and unkind for the operation. Without Fowler's plough 

 I should not have moved an acre by steam last autumn ; with it, we got over 

 87 acres very satisfactorily, at the same cost per acre as it had been done in 

 other years by Smith's cultivator. So I come to the conclusion that there is 

 good in all ; Smith's for real hard work, Howard's for crossing Smith's work ; 

 and Fowler's for doing that which they cannot do. I have them all. 



" I am, my dear Sir, faithfully yours, 



" C. Randell." 



No. 68. Mr. Peter Davis, of Bickmarsh Hall, near Alcester, 

 Warwickshire. Three or four sets of the Bedford tackle are at 

 work within a short radius of Honeybourne Station, in a dis- 

 trict of stiff clay, high-backed lands, and ploughing by 4 horses 



