Clarke.] Report on Steam Cultivation. 327 



the earliness of sowing and the absence of " concealed horse-foot- 

 prints " being so important. He thinks that the steam harrows 

 woukl not be an improvement upon the horse grubber-harrow, 

 from the difficulty of working the many porters in a single- 

 engine set, upon land " so tossed about that it stops all the fox- 

 hunters without calling out." We saw a piece of bean stubble 

 steam -ploughed for wheat, splendidly done. The sowing is done 

 broadcast with barrows, for here they are not much annoyed 

 with " annuals." The potato land is also ploughed by steam for 

 wheat. 



The preparation for turnips is to steam-dig in the autumn, 

 and twice grub in the spring, the rest of the seed-bed being 

 wrought by horses ; and, as an extraordinary advantage of possess- 

 ing a doubled tillage force, Mr. Wright never has more than 2 

 acres prepared a-head of the turnip sowing, the seed thus going 

 into as moist a mould as possible. His swedes are good ; but 

 much of the plant missed ; the land tolerably clean. He has not 

 had sufficient time to compare his produce before and after 

 " steam ; " but says^ " one thing is very obvious, the crops are 

 much easier kept clean, and that of itself should help them to 

 yield more." He has not altered his rotation or enlarged his 

 breadth of root-crops. 



The engine does nothing but tillage-work on this farm ; for it 

 cannot be spared to visit other people's occupations, and a 10- 

 horse portable, with a Clayton portable thrashing-machine, does 

 all the thrashing at the main homestead and at an off barn, 

 besides grinding, chaff-cutting, root-cutting, oat-bruising, sawing 

 wood, and other occasional labour. 



Having reached a point so far north, we ventured to extend 

 our tour, on the kind invitation of Mr. Hope, to see what steam 

 culture is doing in the renowned district of East Lothian : for if 

 tillage-husbandry so perfect and so economical as that of the best 

 farmers there should be improveable by steam machinery, what 

 a convincing proof this would be that second-rate farming is 

 open to still greater benefit from that machinery. 



Within a few miles of Drem, in Haddingtonshire, five sets of 

 steam-tackle are at work. We had not time to visit Mr. Walter 

 Reid of Drem — whose apparatus is that of Messrs. Coleman and 

 Morton, of Chelmsford, in which a headland engine with a couple 

 of winding-drums works two one-way implements, these being 

 always in work when going toward the engine, and returning 

 toward the anchor backwards without working. It was reported 

 to us as giving him satisfaction in every way. We were also 

 obliged to pass by the Fowler " set " of Mr. Todd, of Castle 

 Mains, Dirleton, near Drem. 



