CHAP. XX. STEPHENSON ON FARMING. 443 



a workman regularly employed in carrying out his 

 many ingenious contrivances of this sort. 



He took much pride also in his growth of cucumbers. 

 He raised them very fine and large, but he could not 

 make them grow straight. Place them as he would, 

 notwithstanding all his propping of them, and humour- 

 ing them by modifying the application of heat and the 

 admission of light for the purpose of effecting his object, 

 they would still insist on growing crooked in their own 

 way. At last he had a number of glass cylinders made 

 at Newcastle, for the purpose of an experiment; into 

 these the growing cucumbers were inserted, and then he 

 succeeded in growing them perfectly straight. Carry- 

 ing one of the new products into his house one day, and 

 exhibiting it to a party of visitors, he told them of the 

 expedient he had adopted, and added gleefully, " I think 

 I have bothered them noo !" 



Mr. Stephenson also carried on farming operations 

 with some success. He experimented on manure, and 

 fed cattle after methods of his own. He was very par- 

 ticular as to breed and build in stock-breeding. " You 

 see, sir," he said to one gentleman, " I like to see the 

 coos back at a gradient something like this " (drawing 

 an imaginary line with his hand), " and then the ribs or 

 girders will carry more flesh than if they were so or 

 so." When he attended the county agricultural meetings, 

 which he frequently did, he was accustomed to take part 

 in the discussions, and he brought the same vigorous 

 practical mind to bear upon questions of tillage, drain- 

 age, and farm economy, which he had been accustomed 

 to exercise on mechanical and engineering matters. At 

 one of the meetings of the North Derbyshire Agricul- 

 tural Society, he favoured the assembled farmers with 

 an explanation of his theory of vegetation. The prac- 

 tical conclusion to which it led was, that the agriculturist 

 ought to give as much light and heat to the soil as 

 possible. At the same time he stated his opinion that, 



