354 Report on Steam Cultivation. [ClakivE. 



Moreover, if, on a steep hill side, a wheel of tlie cultivator 

 happens to get into the cultivated ground, it cannot be got out 

 again into its proper track on the unbroken ground, if the work 

 is begun across the bottom, instead of the top. Again, when a 

 level field is to be " done and crossed " (if no other more im- 

 portant consideration chance to interfere) always begin the short 

 way first; this making the shortest journey of the engines over 

 worked ground, when changing from one operation to the other 

 and when leaving the field. But should the gateway happen 

 to stand " midside " instead of at one corner, this rule must be 

 violated. 



Where, of necessity, the distance between one job and another 

 consumes much more time than is lost by the farmer employ- 

 ing his own apparatus, it is only by judicious planning and 

 incessant personal attention that sources of loss can be avoided ; 

 and it is owing to Mr. Smith's care and forethought that he is 

 able to report, " we have only been stuck fast once, and that was 

 in an old filled-up ' stell ' in the marshes." * 



No. 106. We have the opinion of another first-rate manager 

 and proprietor of contract apparatus, Mr. Henry Yates, of Abbey- 

 street, Derby, that " 3-horse land" pays the letting man best: 

 clay, without stone in it " pulls dead," — indeed, the engines find 

 very great and unexpected differences in the mechanical " til- 

 lage value " of soils, which horse teams merely pull through 

 all the same. Until some new implements are biought out, the 

 contract man cannot compete against 75. or %s. an acre horse- 

 ploughing, though he can do the work wonderfully quicker and 

 better : cultivating is the deepest, best, and most expeditious of 

 steam work. The wear and tear being so much greater than in 

 the case of tackle limited to a farm, the only chance for the 

 letting-man is that the farmer shall be willing to pay for the accom- 

 modation of having his work done when most required : and cer- 

 tainly, the fact that horses would plough or cultivate at so many 

 shillings per acre ought to be no test of what a job may be 

 worth, when the farmer has no horses to spare for the operation 

 just when it ought to be done. Unless handsome prices are earned 

 during the autumn (when any " set " can always have more work 

 than it can do) a man cannot stand against the slack season of 

 May, June, and July ; except, indeed, he is lucky enough to be 

 in a dead-fallow district, where a portion of summer tillage can 

 be found for his engines. Thus, Mr. Yates has worked two 

 " double " sets of Fowler's 10-horse tackle, for eighteen months 

 together, every day when the weather was suitable. 



Employers of hired apparatus need to be reminded that the 



* Mr. Smith remarks that no engine ought to travel on the roads after dark, 

 either with lights or without. 



