280 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Clakke. 



are, — engine-driver, 1/. per week, and house to live in ; he is 

 employed at other times in a carpenter's shop ; the ploughman has 

 14i'. ; the anchor-man 12^. ; two porter-men 126'. each ; and water- 

 man lis. per week. Removal takes two horses for half an hour, 

 but the whole shift occupying half a day. The engine is em- 

 ployed three days a week in sawing, in grinding, and working 

 other farm machinery. 



Mr. Corbet says that the drainage is improved, but he does not 

 attempt eating off roots on strong land ; his course of cropping 

 has been altered, not by increasing, but by decreasing his breadth 

 of roots, and growing two corn crops in succession ; and the yield 

 is certainly increased, though, " having taken the land from 

 a tenant, cannot say in what ratio." This tenant used to keep 

 8 horses ; Mr. Corbet added 300 acres, and employs 7, but they 

 do estate work besides. 



No. 74. Mr. Thomas Nock, of Sutton Maddock, Shiffnal, 

 Shropshire, occupies 500 acres arable and 50 of pasture, in gene- 

 rally level fields from 9 to 16 acres in extent (" many fences 

 taken up, and more should be "). The soil varying from strong 

 loam with clay subsoil on most part, to red sandstone on the re- 

 mainder. In April, 1862, he purchased a Howard tackle with 

 10-horse engine, costing 500/. It cultivates 5 up to 10 acres per 

 day, according to depth. Coals are burned at the rate of 12 cwt. 

 per day, costing IO5. per ton. Water is supplied by horse and 

 cart ; five men are paid 2^. 6f/. each per day, and three boys Is. 

 each ; and taking up and setting down the apparatus (besides 

 travelling) takes 2 hours. The engine does the farm thrashing. 

 Mr. Nock says that the drainage is certainly improved ; and also 

 that the root-crops can be fed off with much more advantage. 

 He has not altered his rotation of cropping. His team force is 

 reduced from 18 horses "before" to 15 "now." 



No. 75. Mr. Henry Hanbury Tracy, of Gregynog Hall, 

 Newtown, Montgomeryshire, works a Howard tackle, with 

 5-tined cultivator and ridging body, a heavy steam-harrow, light 

 harrow, and side harrow, by a 10-horse portable engine, upon 

 only 106 acres arable. The soil is a " mixed heavy loam, hard 

 and tenacious," " hilly," and now divided into seven fields, ranging 

 from 7 to 30 acres — all altered to suit steam cultivation — and 

 roads have been made for bringing the engine to each "station," 

 while at each " station" a reservoir has been constructed, so that 

 the engine pumps its own water. The repairs have been " 5/. or 

 G/.," chiefly from breakages. The average performance is about 

 6 acres cultivated per day. A removal takes 6 horses, " on the 

 average," "from a day to a day and a hali." When taken in 

 hand, this farm was in "a most wretched, neglected state:" 

 " 4 horses will now do all the work required [except the re- 



