306 On the Agricultural Improvements of Lincolnshire. 
easily managed without the employment of an educated engineer, and 
has hitherto required no repairs. At present we thresh and winnow 
grain by steam, cut chaff, grind and dress corn, flatten linseed or beans, 
and break cake. Bones we propose breaking, and also the steaming of 
chaff. We have not reduced our number of horses, having undertaken 
our own ' marling,' or chalk leading, which is generally contracted for; 
but we are convinced that four horses out of eighteen will eventually be 
saved by the use of steam." 
The disc-engine, which from its simple form is the best I be- 
lieve for farmers, was put up for Mr. Uppleby by our consulting- 
en<;ineer, Mr. Parkes. These improvements, if they be such, 
will doubtless be made by the farmers of this county, for the face 
of their fields shows that their minds have not been closed to in- 
quiry. They have one advantage indeed in those fields which 
must not be passed over — their size, I mean — which varies from 
30 to 50 acres, .and their cli])ped hedges uninjured by trees — an 
advantage which will be felt by farmers from the west side of 
England, whose 4 or 5 acre fields are half overshadowed by trees. 
One farmer indeed in Devonshire lately qrrew, I was assured, 
100 acres of wheat in fifty different fields. The profit of the trees 
that grow in these fences cannot compensate for the land which 
they injure. I have seen turnip-fields in which one-third of the 
crop has been spoiled by the hedgerow timber, partly through the 
drip])ing from the leaves, but in great part by the roots, whose 
fine threads shoot up among the turnips into the freshly-ploughed 
ground, and sometimes clog the harrows in the following spring. 
It is clear that, though the landlord's trees may be permitted to 
stretch their roots through his own land, when that land, poor and 
starved, is left on the old system of farming to its own natural 
efforts, they cannot be entitled to forage upon manure bought at a 
heavy expense by the tenant ; and though the forest-like appear- 
ance of such small wooded enclosures is very beautiful, still, were 
the fences removed,* one-fourth might often be gained to the land, 
* The improvement which maybe produced by the removal of old fences 
is described in the following statement by Mr. Keeling, a Staffordshire 
farmer : — 
" At the request of Lord Hatherton I send you tiie measurement of the 
two large fields at Yew-Tree Farm. The turnip-field is 65 acres ; it was 
two years back, at the time I entered upon the farm, in eight enclosures : 
I have taken up 1914 yards of fences, and intend dividing it into three 
fields ; it will take 800 yards of new fence. The field in which I was sub- 
soiling is 42 acres ; it was in six enclosures. I took up 1264 yards offences; 
if I divide this field it will take 300 yards of new fence. The land Lord 
Hatherton mentioned on my Deanery Farm was originally in 27 enclosures, 
91 acres. T took up 4427 yards of fences ; it will now lie in five fields, and 
will take 1016 yards of new fence, a part of which are planted. 
" I really cannot say what land is gained by the different operations, but 
some of the fences were from three to four yards or more wide, that the 
plough never touched ; my new fences are upon the level without ditches ; 
