Clarke.] Report on Steam Cultivation. 291 



than animals could do it, executes the tillage in a style of effici- 

 ency that they could not imitate at all. 



The effects of the deep culture upon drainage have heen 

 exemplified on this farm in a way we should hardly have 

 expected. The surface is slightly undulating, the "water-table" 

 in the subsoil is low, the outfalls are good, and the average rain- 

 fall moderate, or 26 to 28 inches. Yet Mr. Savidge maintains 

 that to lay any of his strong-land fields uniformly flat — that is, 

 without any semblance of ridge and furrow — is a mistake. Pro- 

 bably he would say that an appeal to the example of a garden- 

 bed is an inapplicable argument for the perfect drainage of 

 deeply-delved horizontal ground ; because, in the case of the 

 garden, within a score yards or so, there are most likely ditches 

 or other interruptions of a uniform plane. But whatever theory 

 has to urge on the question, here is a practical proof: when a 

 clover-lea on clay soil is grubbed-up early for what is here called 

 a " pin-fallow " for wheat, Mr. Savidge considers himself obliged 

 to plough it up into ridge and furrow before sowing, having 

 found that it will not otherwise drain well through a wet season. 

 Fields were laid flat, at the introduction of the steam-plough 

 a few years ago, in the belief that good husbandry prescribed 

 such a course ; but it " did not act," because of the tops of the 

 old ridges being too bad a soil, and the plough has now been 

 used to cast them up again, though not very high. Mr. Savidge's 

 declaration that he has damaged much heavy land by flattening 

 it, probably finds a commentary and explanation in the experience 

 of other managers who have done injury when they threw down 

 high-backed lands in a summary manner, but not when the 

 lowering was very gradually effected. Still, it may be true that 

 certain descriptions of soil and subsoil require the superficies to 

 be, as it were, slightly in '* marcite " contour; on which question 

 further information appears in our accounts of some other farms, 

 — as, for instance. No. 67. 



No. 79. Mr. Robert Craddock, of Lyncham, Chipping 

 Norton, Oxfordshire, purchased a Fowler " 10 horse set" at the 

 Worcester Meeting in 1863, the total cost being about 780/. 

 The only breakage of consequence has occurred to the engine- 

 shaft, which cost 16/. to repair. The working charges are, — for 

 labour, six men and boys, 95. 6f/. a day ; removal, two hours of 

 time ; water, drawn by a horse and boy from tanks made in proper 

 places on the farm ; oil and grease, \s. lOd. a day ; coal, at 13.s. per 

 ton, from 12 to 14 cwts. per day. The plough does from 5 to 6 

 acres, and the cultivator 8 to 10 acres per day. The farm, of 

 about 400 acres arable, and 130 acres of meadow and pasture, 

 has a rather deep, retentive soil, with the subsoil of one part 

 gravel, of another part clav. The surface is nearly level, and in 



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