CHAP. v. LIQUID MANURE CART. 731 



potatoes for the prevention or checking of the common disease of that 

 crop. Fig. 292a illustrates the same machine adapted to the spraying 

 of charlock in corn crops, and fig. 293 displays the sprayer as arranged 

 for potatoes, independent of a cart, in which form it will get over a 

 large acreage in a day, as it is an automatic machine, whereas the 

 apparatus attached to a cart requires one man to work the pump. 

 Another advantage of the Mikado is that the wheels can be shifted to 

 suit the rows of potatoes. It is made for five or seven rows, and the 

 larger machine can be made to spray 30 acres in a day. The cart 

 machine, of course, is much cheaper than the Mikado, and for farms of 

 small or medium size it does the work quite quickly enough. Other 

 forms of the Strawsonizer are fitted for distributing powder. Messrs. 

 Mackies also construct machines for spraying fruit, hops, vines, flowers, 

 tea, coffee, and other crops. Some are large enough to require a horse 

 or pony to draw them, while others are in knapsack form. 



Liquid-manure carts must be looked upon as manure distributors, 

 and they are very essential where animals lie on slatted floors, or 

 wherever there is a liquid -manure tank. Fig. 294 illustrates a liquid- 

 manure cart fitted with a pump : by taking off the distributor it becomes 

 a convenient water-cart, such as is necessary on all farms. Iron carts 

 are preferable to wooden ones because the former can be more easily 

 cleaned, and freed from unpleasant odours. 



CHAPTER VI. 



STEAM AND OIL MOTOR CULTIVATION. 



HAVING described the more important implements worked by horses 

 in tillage operations, we will now consider those worked by steam. 

 Steam as a motive power for working field implements has been used 

 for a great number of years, but it was not until less than half a century 

 ago that it became at all common. It, perhaps, first made its advantages 

 generally felt at the time when farmers and their men were brought 

 into antagonism about the year 1870, for as manual labour was short, 

 and horses were scarce, owing to the demand for them because of the 

 great prosperity which attended all English industries after the Franco- 

 Prussian War, it was found difficult to work the land thoroughly. 

 Later on in the seventies a series of wet years set in. and so much 

 difficulty was experienced in keeping the work forward, that the aid of 

 steam was called in to do it. It then seemed as though steam would 

 take such a prominent position that horses would have but little to do. 

 The work, however, was often done injudiciously, the same care which 

 good tillers had bestowed on their horse tillages not being exercised, so 

 that the reputation of steam suffered, with the result that instead of 



