on Agricultural Implements. 



641 



be shifted only once in the daj. As to the economy of using 

 the draining plough, it is too expensive to purchase, unless for 

 a large landowner, but it may be hired by the year or the 

 month. Its inventor is also ready to execute work at his own 

 risk by contract, at a saving of from one-third to two-thirds on 

 hand- labour, the greater the depth the greater being the saving. 

 I have only seen the actual cost of two drainages that have been 

 made by this plough. They were both without tiles and shallow, 

 being only 2J feet deep. Taking the highest of them, and adding 

 the cost of tiles, the price of tile-draining land at that depth, and 

 at 33 feet apart, would be 145. only for work, and with l|-inch 

 pipes, at 155. per 1000, I85. ^d. for tiles — all together 1/. 85. ^d., 

 including horses and hire of machine. The plough goes as well, 

 however, at a depth of 4 feet, nor could the additional cost be 

 material. The plough has worked on the following farms: — 



Depth. 



Acres. ft. in. 



Mr, Fowler, Melksham ... 14 2 6 with pipes. 



Mr. Newman, do. . . . . 10 2 0 do. 



Mr. Blandford, near do. . . .30 3 6 do. 



Mr. Purcb, Down Ampney . . . 100 without pipes. 



Mr. Hall, Brentwood .... 200 2 6 with and without. 



„ Wormwood Scrubbs . . 40 from 2 ft. to 4 ft., with tiles. 

 Mr. Harris, Darlington . . . now working 3 6 



In clay subsoils, with a gentle fall, the success of this new im- 

 plement seems to be beyond doubt, and in all circumstances the 

 inventor is ready to undertake the risk of the execution. 



In now closing this Report, I shall be permitted to say that, 

 although it is impossible adequately to value any productive ma- 

 chinery without detailing its objects and estimating its power to 

 diminish human toil, or to increase the results of that toil, I 

 could not have ventured to enter so far into the practice of hus- 

 bandry, but for the interest your Royal Highness has long taken 

 in these pursuits, and, above all, from the high concern enter- 

 tained by you in the welfare of that important class among her 

 Majesty's subjects to w^hom agriculture affords the means not of 

 harmless or useful amusement merely, but of anxious subsistence, 

 not unaccompanied now with serious misgiving. A sure con- 

 viction, founded on no short experience, that those new im- 

 plements which in the great Exhibition afforded not the least 

 conspicuous testimony to the advance of English skill in 

 devising mechanical means for the abridgment of labour, can 

 practically afford to the English farmer, if rightly understood, 

 important, easy, and immediate assistance, has emboldened me 

 to pursue the necessary chain of evidence with, I fear, tedious 

 minuteness ; but that minuteness will, I trust, be excused, if it 

 shall have established any definite truths, which, as affecting the 



VOL. XII. 2 T 



