Ten Years of J'Msf Lothian Farming. 109 



Society, when the pre-eminent utility of the smaller and simpler 

 machines, founded on Hussey's principle, was at once and con- 

 clusively established. Since then, practical experience, as well 

 as subse([uent competitions, have thoroughly established the 

 light and handy reaper, as the machine by which the crop 

 of the county is to be cut. There are one or two farmers 

 who still reap their crop with the sickle, and they are likely to 

 continue to do so. No improvement was ever accepted with 

 absolute uniformity by an existing generation. It is not long 

 since we saw an old gentleman (a good shot and a good sports- 

 man he was too), who, despising percussion-caps, adhered man- 

 fully to the " flint-and-steel " of his early days. 



With rare exceptions, however, each farm is now furnished 

 with a reaper, and several of the more extensive have three or four. 

 They are all 2-horse machines ; and it Is found expedient that 

 the driver sliould drive from a seat, and not ride, as was usual 

 at first. 



All these reapers act upon the principle of manual delivery ; 

 but, though not yet in general use, we expect soon to see a 

 " self-deliverer" added to the implements of every large farm. 

 In a county such as East Lothian, where labour In harvest is 

 often scarce, and where destructive winds are only too com- 

 mon, it Is of great consequence to be able to send a single man 

 with a pair of horses into a large field of standing corn, and have 

 it cut down whilst the labourers are at work in other parts of 

 the farm. This we have repeatedly seen done with one of 

 M'Cormack's reapers. 



By reaping-machines the work is much better as well as more 

 cheaply done than by manual labour, and the sheaves are sooner 

 fit to he carried, since the pipes of the straw, not being bruised 

 and crushed together as they are by the grasp of the labourer, 

 allow the air to enter much more freely into the shock. The 

 great majority of the reaping-machines are the work of local 

 makers ; who, besides producing as efficient Implements as any 

 in the world, are on tlie spot to rectify whatever may go wrong, and 

 to stand surety for their workmanship. 



Steam Cultivation. 



While the reaping-machine has thus pushed the reaping-hook 

 aside, a still more important agent, steam-power, has offered its 

 giant assistance for the upheaving and disintegration of the soil. 

 Passing over two earlier, l)ut Inedcctual attempts to introduce the 

 steam-plough into the county, we must assign to Mr. Saddler, of 

 Ferrygate, the merit of first establishing this mode of cultivation 

 in l']ast Lothian, Five sets of steam-apparatus are now at work, 

 the property of tenant farmers, and, singularly enough, while 



