600 



Report to H.R.H. the President 



In limiting, as has been done above, the number of ploughings, 

 the new svstem of winter cropping has been passed over, because 

 those extra crops, green rye or tares, winter peas or beans, would 

 more than pay for their extra ploughing. Taking the old system 

 simply, and working it with new tools, we see that common stock 

 land need be ploughed twice only instead of eight times in four 

 years — once after clover, when the green leaves must ba turned 

 down, and the dung perhaps be ploughed in, which the plough 

 only can do, once, in order to stir the land deeply for root crops, 

 and lay it rough for the winter frosts. I will venture to add what 

 may appear theoretical — that, if ever steam be successfully em- 

 ployed in cultivation, it will probably be less by ploughing or 

 digging than with an implement like one of these cultivators, 

 because they are able to work so much wider a space as they 

 pass long in their course. From the preparation of land we may 

 now proceed to 



II. Implements used in the Cultivation of Crops. 

 1. Drills. 



The sower with his seed-lip has almost vanished from southern 

 England, driven out by a complicated machine, the drill, deposit- 

 ing the seed in rows, and drawn by several horses. Here, at 

 least, one would suppose that there must be an increase of ex- 

 pense in the new operation, and, above all, an increase of horse 

 labour ; but even here there is, or may be sometimes at least, on 

 the contrary, a diminution. For though we observe only the one 

 seedsman striding over the fallow, he is followed by machinery — 

 the drags and the harrows — which, though simple enough, yet, 

 as they repeatedly traverse the land, run up to a formidable 

 amount the horse-work expended in this primitive method of 

 sowing. 



In Mr. Haxton's prize essay upon Oats, which is just published,* 

 we find the following passage : — 



Sowing and Harrowing, — The general practice in Scotland is to sow 

 oats broadcast on the winter- furrow, and to cover in the seed by two, three, 



or four harrows coupled together and drawn by as many horses Six 



harrows, three and three together, and drawn by six horses and driven by 

 two men, follow the sower and give a double stroke in the direction of the 

 ridges. 



Three more strokes, five altogether, suffice, as Mr. Haxton 

 informs us, on friable land, but on an old sward the amount of 

 horse-work expended is really wonderful. 



" Old tough lea or wet-ploughed land requires a far greater amount of 

 harrowing than this to bring it into a proper tilth. Two double strokes 



♦ Journal of Royal Agricultural Society of England, Part xxvii. p. 126. 



