642 



Report to ILR.H. tJie President 



prosperity of so important a body of men, may be thought in 

 some degree to claim even national importance, and the claim 

 alone will, I well know, have secured your Royal Highness's 

 indulgent attention. 



It seems proved, then, that within the last twelve years, since 

 annual country shows of implements were established by Lord 

 Spencer, Mr. Handley, and others yet living, old implements have 

 been improved, and new ones devised, whose performances stand 

 the necessary inquiry as to the amount of saving they can effect. 

 To ascertain that amount precisely is difficult ; but, looking 

 through the successive stages of management, and seeing that the 

 owner of a stock-farm is enabled in the preparation of his land, 

 by using lighter ploughs, to cast off' one horse in three, and 

 by adopting other simple tools to dispense altogether with a 

 great part of his ploughing — that in the culture of crops by the 

 various drills horse-labour can be partly reduced, the seed other- 

 wise wanted partly saved, or the use of manures greatly econo- 

 mised, while the horse-hoe replaces the hoe at one-half the expense 

 — that at harvest the American Reapers can effect thirty men's 

 work, while the Scotch cart replaces the old English waggon with 

 exactly half the number of horses — that in preparing corn for 

 man's food the steam threshing-machine saves two-thirds of our 

 former expense — and in preparing food for stock, the turnip- 

 cutter, at an outlay of \s., adds 85. a-head in one winter to the 

 value of sheep — lastly, that, in the indispensable but costly opera- 

 tion of draining, the materials have been reduced from 8O5. to 

 15^. — to one-fifth, namely, of their former cost; it seems to be 

 proved that the efforts of agricultural mechanists have been so far 

 successful, as in all these main branches of farming labour, taken 

 together, to effect a saving, on outgoings, of little less than one-half* 



This saving of labour or expense, though large for land — a 

 material certainly very intractable — is small as compared with the 

 saving eff'ected in the weaving of calico or the knitting of stock- 

 ings. But it is important to observe, on the other hand, that the 

 cost of the means which produce the saving is comparatively 

 insignificant. When the distaff" and knitting-needle were abo- 

 lished, huge factories had to be built, and filled with intricate 

 clockwork of spinning-jennies and looms, costing thousands of 

 pounds. In agriculture we buy a few simple durable tools ; and 

 it is evident that a farmer setting up now in business, who, instead 

 of the old waggons with three horses each, should buy one-horse 



* As mere reasoning seldom carries conviction, I may be permitted to mention that 

 whereas in estimates by excellent farmers 1 2 horses are still assumed to be necessary 

 for a farm of 400 acres, though with improved farming, I find now that I can work 

 460 acres of a mixed farm with 8 horses, which are by no means confined to the work 

 of the farm. — Ph. P. 



