Clarke.] Report on Steam Cultivation. 315 



us with the following fact : — " North Scatter-broom," a field of 

 only 9 acres (and therefore in "short lengths") had been steam- 

 dug in the autumn of 1865, and laid all winter. On the 8th of 

 May, 1866, it was steam-cuhivated in five hours, between seven 

 o'clock and noon ; the cultivator was then taken off and the 

 harrow put to work crosswise (or, as the Norfolk men say, "over- 

 wart"); the harrow traversed the whole piece, and then back 

 again the same way, before nightfall. Thus the field had been 

 cultivated and twice harrowed, making in all (9 + 18) 27 acres 

 of steam tillage in one day. A horse-roller had followed before 

 the second harrowing ; and there is no reason that we know of 

 why a roller should not be attached to the harrow-frame — in fact, 

 we did see an arrangement of this very kind, contrived by Mr. 

 J. A. Williams at Baydon. Next day after this steam-cultivating 

 and steam-harrowing, a light horse-roller and a horse-harrow were 

 used, and the field drilled with swedes. In turnip-sowing time 

 the steam-cultivator was kept going " about two days a-head," so 

 as to keep in the moisture ; and the tilth was " like a garden," 

 yet without the least danger of getting run together by a heavy 

 fall of wet, because the pulverulent seed-bed was not a mass of dry 

 clodlets and dust, but of already moist mould indisposed to cohere. 



The expedition illustrated in this case forms one of the chief 

 arguments in favour of the 2-engine system. Such are the ease 

 and celerity with which the engines take and fetch their imple- 

 ments, pull out their ropes, and so on, that only 10 minutes were 

 intermitted from actual work on that day in exchanging the cul- 

 tivator for the harrow — this being done by one engine, while the 

 other was simultaneously taking up its position and laying its rope 

 for harrowing across the field. If a single engine and anchorage 

 had been used, the shifting would have occupied so long that 

 only a small part of the cross-harrowing could have been done, 

 the turnip-sowing would have been delayed a day, and, had it 

 been in a catching season, the critical time lost might have been 

 indefinitely postponed by drenching rains. 



Shifting the apparatus from one field to another is done in this 

 way : the plough goes its last journey Avithout trailing out the 

 return rope behind it, consequently the engine at that end from 

 which the plough is starting in its last furrow is at liberty to 

 travel, which it immediately does, taking its rope coiled upon 

 its drum, just as it left off hauling the implement ; and this engine, 

 on arriving at the entrance of the next field where work is to be 

 done, waits there till the second engine comes, bringing the 

 plough with it. The rope of engine No. 1 is then hooked to 

 the plough, and engine No. 2 marches across the field to its 

 required position on the far headland, taking the plough with it, 

 and simultaneously laying out the rope. 



