682 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



I should be sorry, however, under any circumstances, to begin the 

 expensive system of steam-ploughing without the previous application 

 of drainage to the land. 



Turning to another aspect of the question, I consider steam-culti- 

 vation as not only a revolution in our method of working the heavy 

 clay-lands of this country, but also a moral revolution, ali'ecting every 

 class of persons connected with agriculture. I look upon it as im- 

 possible for tenants in the long run to take up steam-ploughing, 

 unless the farms are put into proper condition for them. Small fields 

 and hedgerows must be done away with, for exijerience tells me that 

 the economy of steam-ploughing depends on the quantity of rope 

 employed, and the absence of impediments caused by hedgerows. 

 But an important question now arises, " Will the tenant-farmer, when 

 the advantages of steam-ploughing are well understood throughout 

 the country, embark his capital in the enterprise where his tenancy 

 is for a short period only ? " I believe that we shall find these hold- 

 ings cease to be yearly, and that a system of leasing will pervade the 

 whole country. Here I connect the landlord and the tenant together 

 in the matter of steam-ploughing ; let me now connect the labourer 

 with it, and show what will be the moral advantage to him. Of 

 course you take your best labom-ers ; like Mr. Smith, I have men 

 from my own village who have been educated as steam-ijloughers. 

 The term during which I have been engaged in the system has given 

 time enough for a generation of young steam - labourers to grow 

 W]} ; and I find that those have become a species of aristocracy 

 among the villagers, that they value the advantages of their position, 

 and are determined to hold it, and have their children educated also, 

 so that they in their turn may become some of the best men in the 

 village. All these things are going on together ; and, as I have 

 remarked elsewhere, your best laboui'ers, your steam-ploughers, or 

 those Avhom you employ in connexion with steam-cultivation, must 

 come out of decent cottages. 



Mr. Stephenson spoke in favour of the round-about system, after 

 ten years' experience of it. He concurred in thinking that all land 

 ought to be ch-ained before it was steam-ploughed. 



Mr. Watts, who had been working Fowler's apparatus for the past 

 six years, said that last season he added another engine to the set. 

 Like Mr. Holland, he had had to encounter the difiiculty of some very 

 high-backed land, which, however, he had gradually reduced, and in 

 every way he was satisfied with the system. The labom-ers in the 

 field had been taught to work the apparatus successfully. 



Mr. CoLE3iAN (Chelmsford), whilst concurring in what bad been 

 said with respect to the value of the reports published in the Society's 

 Journal, drew attention to the fact that in the statistical report the 

 cost of working the apparatus constructed by himself was shown in a 

 difierent manner to that generally adopted throughout the rej)ort. 

 The case he referred to was in No. 23, where the cost of working was 

 represented as 17s. M. per acre, whereas he believed that taking a 

 day's work at 11. lis. 4d. for seven acres per day, it was under 5s. an 

 acre. But by some curious arrangement, which he did not under- 



