UNDEVELOPED SOURCES OF POWER. 283 



who states that he has just harvested his fifteenth 

 annual crop cultivated by steam-power, and has 

 prepared his land for the sixteenth ; and he gives 

 details, showing that he breaks up and ridges heavy 

 clay soils at the rate of six acres per day, and plows 

 lands already in tillage at the rate of fully nine acres 

 per day. He gives the total cost, (including wear 

 and tear,) of breaking up a foot deep and ridging 65 

 acres in September and October in this year, 1870, at 

 20 6s. 6d. or about $100 in gold : call it $112 in 

 our greenbacks, and still it falls eonsideraby below 

 $2 (greenbacks) per acre. Say that labor and fuel 

 are twice as dear in this country as in England, and 

 this would make the cost of thoroughly pulverizing 

 by steam-power a heavy clay soil to a depth of twelve 

 inches less than $4 per acre here. I do not believe 

 this could be done by animal power at $10 per 

 acre, not considering the difficulty of getting it thor- 

 oughly done at all. Mr. Smith pertinently says : 

 " Horse-power could not give at any cost such valu- 

 able work as this steam-power ridging and subsoiling 

 is." He tills 166 acres in all, making the cost of 

 steam-plowing his stubble-land 4s. 8%d. per acre (say 

 $1 30 greenback). And he gives this interesting 

 item : 



" No. 5, light land, 12 acres, was ridge-plowed and 

 BTibsoiled last year for beans : that operation left the 

 land, after the bean-crop came off. in so nice a state, 

 that cultivating once over with horses, at a cost of 

 2$. per acre, was all that was needed this Antumn for 



