Steam Husbandry with Open Drainage. 97 



that day. The outlay of establishing a resident population had been 

 very great. These were the principal but not the only reasons which 

 determined us to think of implemental cultivation. Steam tillage is 

 the most perfeft cultivation that can be applied to clay lands. 

 It is under control in such a way as no labour gangs can ever 

 be, and will stir the land effeftually 12 inches deep without the 

 fear of scamping." 



A preliminary report seems to have been furnished to 

 Mr. EwiNG by Mr. Wm. Gray (late of Goedverwagting) 

 and this report was sufficient to induce Mr. EwiNG to 

 go on, " and Mr. McGlBBON," to use Mr. EwiNG's own 

 words " was engaged to carry out the operations on a 

 more extended scale," and the letter further states that 

 " No new undertaking in a colony could have been better 

 carried out." The full account, well worthy of perusal, 

 will be found as said before in the Louisiana Planter, 

 No. I of Vol. xii, January 6th, 1894 ; for present purposes 

 it will be sufficient to say that tiles, after considerable 

 trouble and great perseverance, were successfully laid at 

 Pins. Better Hope and Montrose, and at first "except 

 where there were was caddy, worked even better than 

 was expe6led." Later on, the ploughs were got to 

 work, first balance ploughs, and then balance cultivators, 

 and Mr. Crum Ewing stated in his letter " No men at 

 home could work the engines and implements, better 

 than the estate's people.'' 



The letter closes as follows (and as what I am about 

 to read has been but recently published in the Louisiana 

 Planter, I am at liberty to repeat it) : — 



" At this distance I cannot form a decided opinion as to the causes 

 that have led to the rapid deterioration of the cultivation of our estates 

 within the last few years, but from what I saw I consider that sufficient 

 attention was not always paid to the main drainage of the estate. I 

 am also satisfied from what I saw, and from comparing in the journals 



