1867.] Agriculture. 369 



it in tear and wear and breakages, and all the other drawbacks to 

 the system. And the conclusion arrived at is for the most part 

 extremely encouraging and will no doubt promote the adoption of 

 all the rival plans of carrying out steam cultivation under the 

 various circumstances appropriate to each. On light soil as well as 

 heavy, the advantage of prompter, cheaper, and more thorough work 

 done by steam power has been perfectly demonstrated. 



Since the publication of the report the subject has received pro- 

 longed discussion at an unusually full meeting of the Agricultural 

 Society; and it was declared that the advantage of steam cul- 

 tivation amounted on average soils to at least eight bushels per acre 

 in the produce of the grain crops — that arable culture is by means 

 of it annually becoming both cheaper and better — that the drainage 

 of clay soils is facilitated — that while the direct system of traction 

 adopted by Messrs. Fowler and Co. is the best for large fields and 

 large farms, yet the cheaper round-about -system with a stationed 

 engine and windlass is perfectly satisfactory — that even when 

 coals cost 20s. a ton, the power obtained from 6d. worth of them 

 is equal to the day's labour of a horse — and that the system wherever 

 it is adopted is improving all the classes interested in agriculture, 

 and is thus establishing on a more satisfactory basis the relations 

 amongst landlord, tenant, and labourer. 



The revelations made in a recent Blue Book, of the abuses to 

 which the gang system of employing children in the field has given 

 rise, have excited an interest during the past quarter. In recently 

 enclosed districts, the cottage accommodation is especially deficient. 

 Labourers live in widely separated villages, and the labour of boys 

 and girls in the fields being needed on arable land, they have to 

 walk many miles to and from their work, and, being employed at 

 particular seasons on different farms from their parents, and thus 

 collected in bodies under gang-masters, they are liable to all the 

 risks which association with the vicious among themselves and 

 subjection to an unfit foreman sometimes entail upon them. So 

 much feeling has been excited on the subject, that it is probable 

 some legislation may ensue, limiting the age at which girls and boys 

 shall be employed in this way, as well as the distance from their 

 home beyond which they shall not be allowed to work. The 

 condition of the agricultural labourers which has thus been forced 

 upon our attention by a Koyal Commission, is also being urged on 

 public notice by themselves. At Gawcott, in Buckinghamshire, 

 there has been a strike amongst them for higher wages, apparently 

 a perfectly spontaneous act, which has, we believe, resulted in 

 the men out of work being gradually drafted off to other districts 

 at better paid employment ; and at Halberton, in Devonshire, the 

 same process has been going on, organized and carried out by the 

 clergyman of the parish, to the great annoyance of the employers. 



