MODEL FARMING. ' 201 



ing of the farm is done by steam, the engine being in the stack- 

 yard, the furnace under ground, and the smoke and sparks being 

 carried off by a subterranean flue to a tall chimney a hundred 

 yards distant. (I have seen a hundred steam-engines in stack- 

 yards since, without this precaution, and never heard of a fire 

 occasioned by the practice.) 



The grain on the farm had all been sowed in drills. The pro- 

 prietor said that if he could be sure of having the seed perfectly 

 distributed, he should prefer broad-cast sowing (t. e., as well as 

 a first-rate sower could distribute it in a perfectly calm day). 

 The wheat was the strongest we have yet seen, and of remark- 

 ably equal height, and uniform dark color. The ground was 

 almost wholly free from weeds, and the wheat was not expected 

 to be hoed. 



We found fourteen men engaged in preparing a field for tur- 

 nips ; opening drills with plough, carting dung, which had been 

 heaped up, turned and made fine ; distributing it along the drills ; 

 plows covering it immediately, and forming ridges 27 inches 

 apart over it ; after all, a peculiar iron roller, formed so as to fit 

 the ridges and furrows, followed ; leaving the field precisely like 

 a fluted collar. The ridges were as straight as the lines of a 

 printed page ; and any inequality to the hight of half an inch, 

 was removed by the equal pressing of the roller. A more per- 

 fect piece of work could not be conceived of. Seed (3 Ibs. to the 

 acre) will be sown immediately on the ridges, by a machine 

 opening, seeding, closing and rolling six drills at once. The field 

 is thorough drained (as is all the farm, three feet deep) and sub- 

 soil plowed. 



I saw no farming that pleased me better than this, in all Eng- 

 land. It was no gentleman or school farming, but was directed 

 by an old man, all his life a farmer, on a leased farm, without 

 the least thought of taste or fancy to be gratified, but with an eye 



