Clakke.] Beport on Stemn Cultivation. .341 



Say, saving Is. per acre, or 85. per clay. On a farm providing 

 100 days' work, or 800 acres of steam tillage in a year, the 

 saving is 40/." 



We commend this little bit of arithmetic to occu})iers of small 

 fields, and ask them how they can possibly get the full profit out 

 of a steam-apparatus until their landlords enable them to grub-up 

 the hedgerows now preventing the implement from making 

 400-yard-long instead of 200-yard-long furrows? For if it be 

 so important to shorten the time spent in "turning," how much 

 more important it must be to lessen the number of " turnings " 

 required in a dav. Even Mr. Bulstrode's " 10 seconds" at the 

 end are one-tenth of the time occupied by a journey of the 

 implement; that is, out of 11 hours in the day, one whole 

 hour is lost in making the tool ready for its actual work. 

 Suppose, now, his average field to be doubled in length, stoppage 

 at the ends would be only one-twentieth of the whole time, and. 

 another half-hour's work, or nearly half an acre more, would be 

 won in the day without the expenditure of another halfpenny in 

 expenses. But, on the other hand, if the field were of half the 

 length of Mr. Bulstrode's field, then the number of turnings 

 would be double, the time wasted would be one-fifth, or more 

 than two whole hours out of the day, with more than one acre 

 less done per day ; or, in other words, the work would cost pro- 

 bably a shilling or 1.9. Qd. per acre more. It is worthy of note 

 that precisely the same operation upon the self-same soil may be 

 made to cost 25. or 85. more in one case than another, from no 

 other cause than having a short field instead of a long one, or 

 from being dilatory- , instead of smart, in working the implement 

 at both ends of its journey. 



Mr. Bulstrode found that he could not get the full benefit from his 

 patent snatch-blocks on account of another hindrance — the delay 



Fig. 1. 



in reversins: the two drums on the windlass. This he overcame 



