Farming of Cumberland. 241 



The thrashing machine * is a modern implement, and is be- 

 come very general over all the grain-growing parts of the county. 

 It is rather singular that in a county where streams are so 

 numerous water-power should be so little applied to work these 

 machines ; for it is certainly available in scores of instances 

 where horses are used. In West Cumberland, out of the 306 

 thrashing machines in use in 1849,t only 71 were driven by 

 water, seven by steam, one by wind, and all the rest by the more 

 expensive power of horses. 



East Cumberland is equally well supplied with this kind of 

 machinery, and the number is annually increasing, with an evi- 

 dent tendency to apply more water-power. The time appears to 

 be approaching when horses will be kept to perform such work 

 only as other kinds of power cannot be so effectively or cheaply 

 adapted to. 



Drills for sowing grain are slowly creeping into use : some 

 private property, others kept by subscription, and a few for hire. 

 More of these would be adopted if they could be furnished at a 

 lower price, but they are much too costly for any but the large 

 farmer to purchase for home-work. The barrow turnip-drill 

 came into use soon after the introduction of turnips as a field- 

 crop. About the year 1795 the ancestor of the present Mr. 

 Dixon, of Rucroft or Ruckcroft, in the parish of Ainstable, pro- 

 cured a barrow-drill for sowing his patch of turnips with ; and 

 so highly was it esteemed as a saving of labour by himself and 

 his neighbours, that it was lent all round the country, and worked 

 day and night during the season. 



The greater part are horse-drills now, with saddle-rollers to 

 smooth the surface of the ridges and guide the seed-pipes. 



Drills for depositing bone-dust and other pulverised manures 

 are partially in use, where the sizes of the farms warrant such 

 an outlay ; but simpler and less costly machines than those 

 usually sold must be offered to the public before the small 

 farmer can profitably dispense with broadcast sowing.^ Clover 

 and grass-seed drills are so much appreciated for ease of ad- 

 justment and regularity of distribution that few farms are with- 

 out either hand or horse drills for that purpose. 



Grubbers and scarifiers are of various kinds and sizes, but 



* Laing, in his ' Journal of a Residence in Norway in 1834-5-6,' says the 

 thrashing machine *' is diffused so much more universally than in Scotland, that our 

 right to the invention appears very doubtful. In the parish of Overhalden alone, 

 there are sixty thrashing mills. It is certainly not probable that a Scotch inven- 

 tion should find its way to Norway, and be much more generally diffused in its 

 most remote districts than in any part of the country which claims the invention." 

 —p. 168. 



+ Vide Dickinson's Essay. 



X Messrs. Garrett of Saxmundham sell a drill for this purpose, reduced to the 

 very low price of 12/. 



VOL. XIII. R 



