Steam Cultivation. 681 



The President said lie had hoped that Professor Voelcker, for whose 

 scicntitic attainments he felt the greatest possible respect, was going to 

 withdraw altogether what ho must characterise as rank heresy. 



Mr. Smite (of Woolston) observed that he had worked his tackle 

 with his ordinary farm-labourers from the time he started, eleven years 

 ago, and had found no difficulty whatever. He had experienced no 

 breakages, and his implement was as good now as ever it was. In 

 consequence of his windlass being made on an unsound princiide, he 

 changed it at the end of about four years, and adopted the 4-wheeled 

 windlass, which had kept in very good order. The cost was compa- 

 ratively trifling, being simply the interest of money on about 180Z. to 

 himself, but 2iOL to other people. 



Mr. Holland, M.P., having remarked upon the advantage likely to 

 arise from the j)ublication of the Eeport in the Society's Journal, 

 said : — There is this feature in connexion with all professions, that 

 you should have a knowledge of the individual with reference to whom, 

 as a professional man, you are about to act. The first act of a medical 

 man, when treating a patient, is to feel his pulse ; and so, in like 

 manner, we should feel the pulse of our own land, so to speak, before 

 we apply steam-power to it in any shape. In this Eeport any man who 

 wishes to apjjly steam-power to his land, whatever that land may be, 

 will find all the information he needs in a condensed and handy shape. 

 Now, in spite of what Dr. Voelcker says, I believe that you must have 

 deep drainage in connexion with steam-ploughing. Take my own 

 county for example. The heavy land in the Vale of Gloucester is all 

 in deep ridge and furrow, the work of some unkind agriculturists in 

 former ages, and this must all be undone by the steam-cultivator 

 before we shall make a full profit out of that land. It is thrown up in 

 such immense high ridges, that a 5 ft. G in. man, in one fm-row, can 

 hardly be seen from the next adjoining fui-row. And not only is 

 the land on the surface of that shape ; but, on going down into the 

 subsoil, you find that the undcr-surface has taken the same shape, and 

 that that is a heavy clay. How, then, are you to deal with land such 

 as that, without drainage ? Again, these furrows very seldom run 

 l^arallel with one another, and are generally in the form of an S. I 

 tried to drain them in parallel lines, but my drainage fixilcd, and I was 

 obliged to follow the old course of ridge-furrows, as the only mode of 

 getting the water off the land. Through the applications of steam- 

 ploughing, however, I am gradually bringing down these high ridges. 

 I find that we need not be at the expense of putting drains in the fur- 

 rows so deep as would be otherwise necessary ; and now, after seven 

 years' steam-ploughing, I have more or less done away with the 

 ridges, and made the surface comi^arativcly flat. I too, like Mr. 

 Smith, find that the water docs not run off the land, so as to do it 

 damage by carrying away the fine soil into the furrows ; but now 

 that the water runs off through the drains, it takes a much less 

 quantity with it ; and I admit that the drainage is of less conse- 

 quence now than it was formerly, because there is a larger flow of 

 water through the interstices of the land into the drains, and the land 

 is placed in such a position that it can take advantage of the rainfalls. 



