312 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke. 



In April, 1865, Mr. Wilson purchased a pair of Fowler 

 10-horse engines — each a single-cylinder, self-travelling engine, 

 with rope-winding drum under the boiler — working a 4-furrow 

 plough or digger, a balance-cultivator 5 feet wide, or a harrow 

 taking 16 feet breadth at once. The prime cost of this "double 

 set" was 1300/. This being only the second set of this pattern that 

 had then been manufactured, it was not sent out quite perfect in 

 every detail ; and, owing to the skifes being of cast-metal, many 

 were fractured by the big stones. But now that steel skifes have 

 been substituted, breakage does not occur — the stones being lifted 

 up ; and difficulty with stones is not met with after the first deep 

 tillage, during which they are worked and dug out by hand. 

 The cost of these new pieces, and the petty repairs together, have 

 amounted to about 25/., besides " additional" parts costing 30/. 

 The ropes have been broken once or twice ; but they are in good 

 order, and it is too early yet to say what either the consumption 

 of rope or repairs of wearing parts will be. The daily working 

 expenses are as follow : — coal is burned at the rate of 16 cwts. for 

 the two engines, costing 35. 6f/. or 4.s'. a ton, at the pit, three 

 miles off; or 5s. to hs. 6(/., delivered in the country style by one 

 man driving two single-horse carts : say the fuel costs ?>s. Qd. per 

 day. Oil, " 3 gills," costs Is. One horse fetches water from 

 wells and ponds, or from several ditches which cross the farm — 

 say at a cost of 4s. Labour is an expensive item ; and the fashion 

 here is to keep for each labourer a cow on grass in summer, and 

 on two loads of hay with straw ad libitum in winter, — this keep 

 of a cow being considered worth 5s. a week of wages. Ordinary 

 labourers, in fact, earn 15s. a week and a house to live in. The 

 steam-hands are ordinary farm-labourers, excepting one engine- 

 man, who came from Messrs. Fowler ; he is paid 3s. 6d. a day ; 

 the other engine-man, 3s. a day ; the ploughman, 2s. 6d. ; the 

 water-cart lad 2s., and a couple of porter-boys. Is. each ; and in 

 addition the men have their houses rent-free. As the engines 

 can " do everything for themselves," even to leading-out their 

 own rope, they require for "removal" "no horses and no extra 

 men ;" and they accomplish the operation in about 20 minutes, 

 when the shift is from one field into another adjoining. But on 

 the advantages of this despatch we shall have something to say 

 presently. We should say here that all the steam-hands are 

 " volunteers," — as, at first starting, the man set to the plough got 

 unluckily pitched off the implement, turned over on his back, 

 and hurt ; but now, so much interest is taken in the apparatus 

 that even the boys have learned how to drive the engines, and 

 though the Leeds man (we have no doubt) is a valuable fellow to 

 have with the tackle, Mr. Wilson feels himself quite independent 

 in the matter of labour, and could always man his machinery 



