370 Report on Steam Cultivation, [Clarke. 



the death, of his son, who had all the direction and control of it ; 

 and another affirming that the cultivator had answered his 

 purpose, but now he was wanting good men to "go with it" — 

 we suppose, after losing an engine-driver, or some everyday 

 difficulty of the kind. Yet these very gentlemen acknowledge 

 that neighbours, working similar " sets," got their work so forward 

 last year, and all their land so clean, with other good results in 

 prospect, that the merit of steam culture upon medium soil was 

 clearly and practically demonstrated. 



We met with the case of a farm-bailiff who, having saved a 

 comfortable round sum out of his wages, bought a steam-plough 

 and went to work on the letting-out system. But, as described to 

 us, " his men took it easy, and got muddled in the management, — 

 a wet time coming on suddenly, the engine could not be got out 

 of the middle of a clay field, where it stood for four months, and 

 this proved a heavy blow to the poor fellow." Need we wonder 

 that very powerful weighty engines should get a bad name in 

 that immediate vicinity : whereas the machine in distress was a 

 spectacle due to inefficient management, not to the helplessness 

 of a 12 or 14-horse engine in a soft country ; because there are 

 numbers of such, in similar circumstances, free from like acci- 

 dents and laughable ill-luck. 



One reason why steam-ploughing does not spread rapidly in 

 the vicinity of very successful examples was thus put by one good 

 manager that we visited : — " Neighbours of mine who could buy 

 my farm to-morrow, but have never spent 50/. in guano, — miserly 

 save-alls, devoted to mean savings, investing no capital in remu- 

 nerative improvements, for want of enterprise and largeness of 

 mind, — are not the men to lay out hundreds of pounds in a 

 machine which they can, nevertheless, see does me good." 



We have been to a farm, expecting to see a good example, 

 knowing it to be in the hands of a man of capital, and have been 

 disappointed by finding the several parts of the tackle rusted-up 

 in a back-yard — in fact, laid aside a couple of years ago ; and, 

 as far as we could make out, mainly because it began to call for a 

 slight outlay in repairs. How is steam-machinery to make its way, 

 if subjected to such niggardly and suicidal treatment as this? 



We have seen expensive steam-tackle standing out in the rain, 

 with not even a tarpaulin covering the Avindlass, the rope fright- 

 fully red-rust-coated on the drums — not in the field where work 

 was left-off and work was to be renewed, but on the farm premises, 

 where the rope-porters and anchors, and pulleys laid there for 

 months, were grown round with grass, because of there being no 

 possible shelter under which they could be put ; so pitiful was 

 the accommodation, (there was little also beside a poor barn, 

 tumble-down hovels, and ransres of the vilest thatched sheds in 



