147 



AGRICULTURAL IMPLEM 



AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



extensive holdings and to smaller form*, by modifying the amount of 

 power to be applied A* to the space robbed from the field by the 



rails and holUnting, the inventor contends that, even if greater than it 

 >, it would still be lea than the open f urrowi between ridge* ; and 

 also that no bra-rood* would be wanted in the field, seeing that the 

 xuideway machine* convey everything to and from the field. As the 

 machines can be worked nearly a* well in the dark an in the light, they 

 might be made to do double duty in the twenty-four hours during 

 sejeon* of exigency, by a relay of a few hands. When once the noil 

 hat been brought to a high condition, it may easily be kept go; for tl>< 

 whole weight of the machinery, engines, and inijili -incuts rots u|.u 

 the rails; nothing touches the noil except tin- implement- in opera- 

 : liornas need stamp the ground with their iron .-hod feet; and 

 the footprint* of the guide and the ploughman need in -vrr be seen 

 pugging the clay, and treading into a solid clod that which has been 

 reduced to the fineness of garden-mould. At present, the wet-ding. 

 earthing up, hoeing, and loosening of the earth among young crops 

 are difficult to perform with the requisite care except by hand ; but 

 the gnideway implements can bo adjusted with great nicety, so as to 

 travel at the requisite proximity to the rows at all times during the 

 growth of the plant. Besides the machinery which carries the engines 

 and implements, there are other gnideway arrangements, equal in 

 width from rail to rail, but smaller and lighter, for carrying water, 

 manure, and the gathered crops ; and the sprinkling of water and 

 liquid manure can be effected nearly hi the same way as by the water- 

 drill. When manual labour is required for the purpose of weeding, 

 transplanting, or any other light work, the labourers are conveyed to 

 the spot by means of the trucks, upon which they sit or stand while 

 tin- work is being performed, or while the crop in being transferred 

 from the ground to the truck. The trucks for this purpose might be 

 drawn by horse-power or by manual labour, if preferred. Where the 

 side of a field is crooked, the crooked part may easily be fenced "I! and 

 used for ordinary cultivation. Where roads or lanes intervene between 

 different fields,a level crossing on moveable mil* would enable machinery 

 to pass from field to field. If a farm abuts on a railway, it may be 

 made to communicate with it; by this means the produce may be sent 

 to populous towns without once leaving the rails : manure may be 

 brought from the towns to the fields at a very small expense; and 

 marl, clay, or sand, may be brought cheaply from distant places. The 

 smaller system of cultivation, for the light operations of a farm, or for 

 the total cultivation of a market-garden, might be worked by one small 

 steam locomotive instead of two. Mr. Halkett has sketched the 

 appearance of his apparatus when provided with all the implements for 

 drilling corn, drilling seeds between the rows of plants, hoeing, rolling, 

 surface watering, watering in rows, underground watering between 

 rows, carrying crops, carrying water, weeding, transplanting, dibbling, 

 and cross-hoeing, for the light operations of a farm, or for market- 

 gardens, of course not all working at once, but showing the mode of 

 arrangement for each. The inventor believes that the guide-way 

 system would be profitably employed in the West Indies, for ploughing. 

 earthing the sugar cro|, hoeing, carting the canes from the field, and 

 other operations in which slave labour is now found to be really very 

 costly. 



In a duciuuion which followed the reading of Mr. Halkett's paper at 

 the Society of Art, very conflicting opinions were expressed concerning 

 the advantages of his new gnideway system of steam culture. It was 

 contended by some of the members, that the machines would cost 

 more than was stated ; that the system was not well adapted for other 

 than very large farms, with large rectangular fields ; that the system 

 would not be workable except under a custom of long leases of farms, 

 which would induce the fanners to invest the requisite capital ; that 

 the curves, and twists, and corners of a field would always be a source 

 of perplexity to the farmers under this system ; that the profits could 

 not be so Urge as had been stated; that, even if large, tin-re must 

 first be a very heavy expenditure of capital, from which mot fanner* 

 WOtlld shrink j that fields would require a good deal of levelling to 

 bring out all the excellences of the system ; and that the mil 

 t/H,il l/,f ti,l,l, f,, r fn.r-hnnlni;/! On the other hand, it was contended 

 th.it Mr. Halkett's system contained the germ of that which may 

 greatly advance the science and art of agriculture in a future day. 

 The commercial difficulty in reference to the heaviness of the ftrat cost 

 was generally regarded as Iwing more serious than any mechanical 

 difficulties, which it was believed might easily bo overcome. A further 

 notice of various methods adapted to cultivate the land by steam will 

 1* found in the article ARABLE LANM. 



Whatever may be the relative merit* of different modes of applying 

 steam-power to agricultural purposes, it is evident that this modern 

 invention i*, in conjunction with other improvement*, working a great 

 tion in fanning operations. Mr. I'mcy, in reporting on this 

 subject, as Chairman of the Kxhibition .lmy. in 1861, made the 

 following estimate : That by using lighter plough*, cultivators that 

 lesson the necessity for ploughing, drills that economise both seed and 

 moving-power, horse-hoes instead of hand-hoes, varied manures instead 

 of manures of a few kinds, reaping-machines instead of sickle 

 constructed carte instead of clumsy wagons, fixed and jmrtable 

 engines, steam threshing- and winnowiiig-iiiauhitira, tunii|- and i hall' 



drain tile machines, and drnining-ploughs, there had been 

 in (tnln yeart a taring nf one half the former outlay in cltiratiny a 



It luul been rendered funli. i 



tli.it machinery hod gn ,fi/ to agricultu 



enabling many of the operation-, in doubtful or unfavourable weather, 

 to be done with quickness, which could hardly have been done at all 

 by the hand method. Mr. Kvelyn Denison (now, in 1859, Speaker of 

 the House of Commons) prepared a Report . n t!,. A-ii.-ult.u.il Imple- 

 ment* displayed at the Paris Exposition de 1'Industrie in 1855, in 

 which he endeavoured to estimate the material saving accniin 

 the use of machinery in agriculture. Mr. Sidney, at the close ot 

 gave a few figures intended to bring down the estimate to that year. 

 In tlii.s last-named estimate, it was supposed that within six yean 

 that is, since Mr. Pusey prepared the (treat Kxhibition report the 

 landowners of the I'nited Kingdom hail ex|-nded ten mill 

 in draining two million acres of land, on principles and wi: 

 known until 1845. Then, besides all the saving on the items already 

 enumerated, there is that precious, though not. easily-calculated advan- 

 tage resulting from the economy of tliar. by employing machinery at 

 full force during short interval* of fine weather. 



AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS can scarcely be said to c x 

 yet in England. Notwithstanding the acknowledged ini|H,rt: 

 exact information as to the amount of our agricultural product; 

 consumption, especially to formers, and the interest that is taken in 

 the subject, as shown by the attention to the Mark Lane re]>orU. which 

 ore little better than ingenious guesses, no steps have yet I veil taken to 

 insure a correct estimate of the expected amount of the iu 

 crops, and the state of live stock. Such estimates as are made are 



i from individual instances, than which nothing can I- 

 fallacious. The great differences in cost, cultivation, and even of 

 climate in England, make the application of the doctrine 

 almost more indispensable in agriculture than in any other trade. It 

 is by the accumulation of individual part* that ' something 



like a /air. A law prevails in agriculture as in e !*. and the 



more any subject has the appc. cowry it i.-. 



that the i-xjiericnces should be registered, in order to an ivc at the law 

 expressed by an average. The inconvenience and loss occa-ioiicd by 

 the absence of statistical returns has been often felt. After the li 

 of 1846, the average price of corn for six weeks, from the middle- of 

 August to the end of September, was 4 S. _>''., the lowest price being 

 45. Id. In October, the price improved; but in November it again 

 fell to 50s. But as soon as the new year had liegun. >-ynipt 

 scarcity manifested themselves, and the wheat of i ...irvert, 



notwithstanding the importation of four millions and a half of quarters, 

 reached the price of 1 02. 6rf. per quarter. In this case, a km. 

 of the- produce of the harvest would have saved the fanner fi. 

 sacrifice of his property at the beginning: it would have raved the 

 country from a great loss in the price of the foreign coin im t 

 tied by a sudden rush into the market for large suppl 

 would have probably saved considerable waste of f<od during the 

 ]w>riod when it was improperly cheap; it would have saved inc..n 

 < to the foreigners in whose markets our purchases inevitably 

 'd the price of wheat ; and the gains of the merely speculating 

 corn-dealers would have been saved to the community. 



The desirableness of some knowledge on so important a subject has 

 led many individuals to form, from the best available sources, general 

 estimates, but the discrepancies show the unreliability of such e*t j 

 for any practical purpose. Some endeavoured to arrive at it by taking 

 the acreage of the kingdom, the proportion supposed to ! cultivated, 

 and the probable amount of produce per acre. Gregory King, who 

 wrote in 1685, was among the earliest. He estimated England and 

 Wales to contain 39,000,000 acres, of which he supposed half to 1-e 

 uncultivated. Davenant, Grew, Tern pieman. Sir William 

 Arthur Young, Dr. Beeke, Mr. M'Culloch, Mr. Porter, and others, 

 formed estimates varying from 81,648,000 acres, to 46,916,000 acres, 

 which was the estimate of Arthur Young, and was adopted by 

 Mr. I'itt in his calculations for the probable amount of the Income 

 Tax. In the census of 1851, the area is stated at 87,324,91. r > 

 which wa- M-ry niwr the estimate of Dr. Beeke, who gave it an 

 38,498, 57'2. Others, again, have endeavoured to ascertain the con- 

 sumption by multiplying that of each individual by the number of the 

 Imputation, but here they differ materially, varying from 6 busi 

 S bushels for each individual, an unsatisfactory difference of one thitd. 

 We will now enumerate what measures have been taken in pro- 

 statistics by the government. 



What are called the corn areraf/ft, arc entries or tables originally- 

 intended to regulate the duty on corn ; but if modified and impto\,.|. 

 they might be made an auxiliary to agricultural statistics. For u 

 century previous to the year 1851. such returns were collected from 

 the princi|l seaports of twelve maritime counties entirely in relation 

 to the imposition of duty on foreign corn ; the collector of the rctunis 

 was ap|Kiinted by the magistrates of the town or borough in which the 

 return was made, hut his salary was paid by the government. In 

 1821 a change WM made. The averages were ordered to be collected 

 from 120 large market-towns in England and \\"al. i:\ery corn- 

 merchant, miller, baker, and maltster, was ordered to make weekly 

 returns to the inspector. The in-p-rlor provided a place for the 



n of these returns; he [posted up in Home couvcnn nt ' 

 the gross weekly returns, with the average price of each description of 

 grain sold in the preceding seven days. These averages were then 



