324 Report on Steam Cultwation. [Clarke. 



total, lOo/. 10^. lie?. The total cost per acre being, for digging-, 

 8a'. 9<^Z. ; for cultivating, 65. 8fZ. ; and for double harrowing, 

 4^. 2d. Mr. Grey does not explain the basis of his estimated 

 "repairs" and "interest on plant." The number of horses 

 usually kept to work this sort of stiff land is a pair to every 12 

 acres of fallow ; and the farm being worked on the 4-course 

 rotation, makes the normal force 2G horses : yet only 12 are now 

 kept, and they lead to the homesteads the harvest of GOO acres, 

 they sow 300 acres of winter corn, and have also been partly 

 employed in carting materials for new buildings and in making 

 new roads. In 1866 as much as 270 acres have been dead- 

 fallowed, all steam-dug in winter, and steam-cultivated twice in 

 spring and summer, some of it three times, to level the surface, 

 ■ — for this stiff clay, when deeply worked, is found to drain well 

 flat. We found a good blade of wheat coming up, upon the 

 steam-tilled land, put in with 3 cwts. of guano per acre ; indeed, 

 the only chance for these farms is in thus raising good corn 

 crops, and ultimate profit will depend upon the market and the 

 low cost of the cultivation. And as far as the latter is concerned, 

 the banishment of 14 horses, and consequent saving of GlC'Z. a 

 year, will go far towards paying for the steam-work and the 

 artificial manure, which together are converting a few inches of 

 sticky clay into a good staple of twice the former depth. In a 

 few years this estate will present one of the finest examples of 

 improvement mainly secured by steam cultivation. 



At the time of our inspection (November 19th) the engines 

 were making first-rate work, in spite of the frost, digging 9 

 inches deep, with 3 furrows on the 4-furrow implement. VYe 

 observed the facility with which the signalling is done by the 

 engines Avhistling, without flags, and the drivers were not at all 

 nervous about pulling up the plough within a foot of the bevel- 

 wheels or the fly-wheel on the engines. 



No. 94. Mr. David Wright, of Beal, Northumberland (a 

 farmer from over the Border), occupies 800 acres arable and 

 300 acres of old pasture, a stiff loam and retentive clay farm on 

 the New Red sandstone, at the extreme north of the county, on 

 the shore opposite Holy Island and within sight of Berwick. 

 The land, with a few stones, but these very small, is ploughed 6 

 or 7 inches deep by pair-horse teams, at the rate of half an acre 

 a day, 3 horses ploughing 9 or 10 inches deep. But these are 

 very fine strong horses. Mr. Wright formerly kept 32, that used 

 to eat " two stacks of hay as long as his barn," — that is, he had to 

 mow for them 100 acres of meadow, but now he mows only 30 

 or 40 acres. He has parted with 4 (not venturing a greater 

 reduction at present, as he grows 100 acres of potatoes, besides 

 turnips, with no dead fallow, and pipes have yet to be carted for 



