314 Report on Steam Cultivation. [Claeke. 



3 horses, in consequence of being able to hire this machinery. 

 Mr. Wilson himself has disposed of three " pairs ; " now keeping 



12 horses, whereas 18 are the force due to his quantity of arable, 

 according to the system of culture and usage of the locality. 



There has been no time yet for any proved augmentation of 

 cropping, except that the acreage of roots has been at once 

 enlarged, and that the yield of beans as well as roots is thought 

 to be improved. The rotation has been mainly 4-course, partly 

 a 5-course shift — (1) turnips; (2) wheat and barley; (3,) clover 

 and beans ; and (4) oats ; a portion was always dead-fallowed 

 before the engine appeared, but now all under crop ; and Mr. 

 Wilson says, " I find I can grow turnips on land upon which 

 they were never grown before." We were told that the swedes 

 "we walked over were the only ones in the neighbourhood that 

 had been but once sown, the flies having taken off the plant in 

 all pieces that had not the depth of moist staple here provided 

 by steam tillage. 



After harvest the wheat-stubble is steam-dug for beans, and 

 the oat-stubble dug for the fallow crop — the work being 11 to 



13 inches deep, this being regulated by the subsoil, some of the 

 land being too close to the rock for the deepest work. After 

 this, the engines go for a time to other people's farms. The 

 majority of the turnips are carted off, some eaten on the land, and 

 the seed-beds for wheat or barley are made by the balance-culti- 

 vator or plough. The clover-lea of 1865 was horse-ploughed, 

 but all steam-ploughed in 1866, except a small breadth which 

 was dug. 



At the time of our visit (November 19th) a severe frost had 

 set in, and Mr. Wilson's polite determination to show us the 

 machinery in actual operation led to the snapping of a rope, from 

 the excessive hardness of the ground, after only an acre or two 

 had been ploughed. At any rate this accident gave us the oppor- 

 tunity of watching a smart " splice," including 8 feet of rope 

 unstranded and made right and tight again in a short half-hour. 

 The rope is in very good trim, and we noticed that, contrary to 

 the common practice with the single line of rope, or "double- 

 engine " system, porters were used here at every 40 yards' distance. 

 We noticed that while one of the engines coils its rope beautifully, 

 the other occasionally suffers the rope to " cross " — the perfect 

 adjustment of the very clever coiling mechanism being a difficult 

 matter. The defectively-wound rope is visibly more worn than 

 the other ; and the engineer said that while this has been broken 

 twice, the other has been broken but once. This is a commen- 

 tary on the coiling of rope upon itself. 



Mr. Wilson says that the harrow makes a magnificent seed-bed 

 for corn or for turnips ; and, as an example of its use, favoured 



