Claeke.] Report on Steam Cultivation. 367 



series of experiments or collecting evidence for or against one or 

 two simple issues, would, in the complicated subject of Steam 

 Cultivation, be very much like our Report written over again. 

 And the facts elicited from occupiers of the selected 140 iarms, 

 embracing 66,000 acres (probably not one-third of the whole 

 steam-tilled area in the Kingdom) will furnish matter for com- 

 ment and discussion, by no means to be forestalled and settled 

 off-hand by the present Inspection-Committees. 



At the same time we have endeavoured by our Tables at the 

 end of the several " Sections," and by the general arrangement 

 of the farms, to guide readers to the kind of information of 

 which they may be in search : they can refer at once to ex- 

 amples of greatest acreage tilled per day, of lowest price per 

 acre, of greatest proportion of draft-animals displaced, of least 

 number of horses still kept ; they will find the " single " and 

 *' double engine " systems discussed in the accounts of those 

 farms which employ two engines, and so on. 



Those persons who may have expected this Report to pro- 

 nounce decisively upon the question between a stationary or 

 headland-moving engine, or between one engine and two, will 

 be of necessity disappointed ; we find it impossible to separate 

 the choice of a " system " from the circumstances in which it is 

 to work and the results demanded of it. In a general way, we 

 might state our impression that, while advantage is derived from 

 employing cheap light tackle for a few fundamental operations, 

 such as autumn cleaning, greater benefit is realized from a more 

 powerful apparatus that can drive all the heavy tillage-work of 

 the farm : we may say that, for farms of diminutive inclosures 

 (not necessarily small occupations), if you 7nust have only one 

 engine, apply it in connexion with the " roundabout" or stationary- 

 engine system ; but that, until the useless and encumbering fences 

 are removed, the double-engine system is the best for such circum- 

 stances ; that, while on clay land, the benefits of steam culture 

 are great enough to warrant the purchase of a single-engine 

 apparatus on a comparatively small farm, small occupations in 

 general must depend upon " partnership " or the " hiring system ; " 

 that the tendency on large occupations is to adopt two engines 

 instead of one, for the sake of the time saved ; that " partnership " 

 works well in several cases ; that the " hiring system " under 

 both individual and partnership proprietors, works well ; that 

 the contract business by Companies has been proved remunerative ; 

 that, in ordinary steam-working, payment of hands by the day 

 is preferable to payment by the acre ; that no insuperable diffi- 

 culty exists about drilling agricultural labourers to manage the 

 steam machinery : and to this we might add many other points, 

 such as the cost per acre being demonstrated to be of less con- 



