1S37.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



633 



stated by Dr. Parrv, that England alone contained 

 29,000,or)() of acres of cultivated land; and from all I 

 have raad on the subject elsewhere, I think that 

 22,000,000 of acres may be assumed as the probable 

 quantity under the plough. If we allow the above, 

 for the sake of showing how steam would benefit the 

 agriculturist, as it has already done the manufacturer, 

 1 shall apportion 20 acres of arable land to the labor of 

 each horse as before, with the accompanying number 

 of attendants ; then, supposing that a period should 

 ever arrive wiien all the arable land shall be worked 

 by steam, we shall have as follows, viz. in England : 



22,000,000 acres of arable land, 



tilled by horse labor, at an 



expanse of £'y.i7: II: 4 for 



200 acres, which is a fraction 



above £2: l.'j: 8 per acre, and 



amounts to the s_u!.a of ' £62,150,000 



The same, if cultivated bv the 



aid of steam, at £263: i): 10 



for 200 acres, would, at £ I 



lis. 9^d. per acre, amount to 34,970,523 



Annual saving to the agrlcul- 



£27,179,177 0*" 



tunsts. 



That the slenm-enfTine wr-uIJ, at no veryt!i.<?- 

 (anfday, supply the place of animal labor in airri- 

 ciilture, and beconne as mio;hfy an inslninrieiit in 

 auirnientioir the productiveness of the soils, as it 

 has proved in creatiiiii; and pcononiiiiing manufac- 

 tures, in navigating the ocean, and in travelling 

 on land, was many years ago pretlicated b}' 

 Franklin — a predicaiion reiterated by Davy, and 

 latierlv acknowledged and enforced b}' many dis- 

 tin<ruished agriculturists. The successtlil ap[ilica- 

 tion of Mr. Heathcoat's invention to the culture 

 of bogs— the most repellant and obstinate of 

 waste land — leaves no doubt ol its applicability to 

 soil already in cultivation. Coals are now procu- 

 rable throughout Great Britain, at prices which 

 have caused the steam-engine to be extensively 

 introduced as a subsliiute lor animal labor in many 

 of the processes connected with husbandry. 

 Thrashing, cleaning and grinding corn, hay-chop- 

 ing, turnip-slicmg, &.C. are now perlbrmed by small 

 enirines fixed on farm premises ; even the churn 

 has its steain-engine managed by the dairy-maid ; 

 and so great is the advantage arising to the dairy 

 farmer, from the regularity of motion, and ocono- 

 my produced bv it, that hundreds of small en- 

 gines for this flimiliar purpose alone, are used in 

 the north of England, and in Scotland. But 

 these are humble savin^gs compared with the ben- 

 efit to be derived fi'om the vast steam power which 

 may be brought to bear on the soil itself. Those 

 agriculturists who are acquainted with the effects 

 produced by the valuable subsoil plough recently 

 invented by Mr. Smith of Deanston, will readily 

 appreciate the importance of an invention which 

 ■will enable him to employ that kind of plough at 

 a much diminished cost per acre. Mr. Smith's 

 plouirh, with steam power, will effect a revolution 



* Our Scottish agricultural readers will easily per- 

 ceive that these calculation? are founded on the rates 

 of English labor and wages. We are quite satisfied 

 that ploughingin Scotland with horses does not exceed 

 the cost of steam-ploughing as given above, namely, 

 3s. 7d. per acre ; but then the food at present con- 

 sumed by horses would go to the support of human be- 

 ings, were inanimate power substituted for animate. 

 Would not such a result be beneficial to a populous 

 country like Great Britain? — Editor. 



Vol. IV— 80 



in agriculture. Im|jlements of husbandry have 

 hitherto been restricted in form, weight, and di- 

 mensions, to the powers and manaffeablcncss ol a 

 team of" horses. A iiew class of" instruments will 

 take their place ; the sliH'est soils may be broken 

 up and pulveri:';ed to any desired de|)ih ; strong 

 clays, the natural wlu^at lands, may he profitably 

 cultivated, rendered more f(3rlile, and fiiled to bear 

 a better, and more systematic rotation of crops. 



Such are a ii^w of" the benefits which land- 

 owners and airriculturists will derive from the sub- 

 stitution of steam for animal power in husbandry. 

 It is also no sliuht advantage, in a national point 

 of view, that this important change will be effec- 

 ted, unacccompanied by any ol' those temiiiu'aiy 

 evils which too Irequenily attend the application of 

 mechanical discoveries to existing arts. This in- 

 vention will not displace a single human being 

 from h;s accustomed healthy occupations ; it will 

 restore to the supjiort of man a considerable por- 

 tion of that large amount of" produce now sacri- 

 ficed to the maintenance of ajiricultural horses — it 

 will furnish employment to the ratsitlly increasing 

 rural popuialion of the empire, by rescuing mil- 

 lions of acres of bog and waste land )t"om obnox- 

 ious sterility — it will fix on their native soil multi- 

 tudes of those poor Iri^^h laborers who annually 

 migrate to Great Britain in search of" work and 

 food, and who are forced, with numbers of our 

 countrymen, to suffer the hardships and danirers 

 inseparable from emigration to wild tjid dis.ant 

 rcirions. 



The horses in Great Britain are said to amount 

 to 2,000,000, each consunjino; annually what 

 would be sufficient to su[)port eight individuals — 

 18,000,000 in all. Their eniire displaceiTient by 

 mechanical means, would, therefore, in effect, be 

 to add another islatid, large as Great Britain, with 

 all its resources for human sustenance, to the seat 

 ol empire! What an insight does this give ua 

 into the indefiniteness of" that divine command 

 which was breathed in Paradise as a blessintr over 

 our race, " Increase and multiply, replenish the 

 earth and subdue it." Have we subdued the 

 earth ? Can we subdue it? How does this incen- 

 tive to rural activity — the precept of that Parent 

 of Good whose iniention it is that the niouihs of 

 all his children shall be filled with food, and their 

 hearts with gladness — meet and overthrow the 

 doirmas of those who have said to population and 

 productiveness, '' Hiiherio shall thuu conie, but 

 no further!" Mind shall indeed achieve her no- 

 blest triumph, when she shall no longer be con- 

 fined to accommodating matter for the use and the 

 comfort of man ; but when she shall direct what 

 in reality is a substance impalpable as the breath 

 of heaven, to purposes which shall feed the hun- 

 sry, clothe the naked, give emf)loynient to the. 

 idle, and, supplementing the energies of exhaust- 

 ed Britain, shall bid her, in renovated splendor 

 and renewed age, walk on imioxious to that in- 

 herent decay which has put down in rotation all 

 the extinct monarchies nf the past, and bid !ier ri- 

 val forages to come, in extent of production, upon 

 the petty surface of a few million acres, the limit- 

 less domain of' her once western world. 



We are hanpv to observe that the pross of 

 Scotland has of late been advocating the advan- 

 tages to arise from steam husbandry ; and we 

 trust the time is not distant when the Highland 

 and Agricultural Society will oiier a liberal pre- 



