480 Report on the Ti-ials of Implements at Wolverhampton. 
8 inclies deep took a drau;2lit equivalent to the tractive power of five liorsesy 
tlie same engine jiloughed at tliat depth at tlie rate of acres in ten liours, for 
a total cost of 7s. \0d. per acre. It was considered that the cost hy horses 
Avould have been double. No such comparison was instituted at Worcester irt 
1803; and complete as were the trials at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1864, and 
again at Leicester in 1868, the elTectiveness of the work done was tested, not 
by any measurement of the draught of the implements, but by inspection and 
by weighing the amount of earth moved per acre, the Judges entering into nO' 
calculation of the relative cost by horses. 
In the Wolverhampton trials, therefore, it appeared to the Judges that the 
extraordinary economy in cost of steam as compared with horse-tillage might 
be taken for granted as already thoroughly proved and well known ; and as 
for founding an estimate of total cost per acre upon an experiment of one or 
two hours' duration, it was desirable that a practical result should be obtained 
by some more exact method than roughly approximating to the weight of coaf 
burned, valuing the highly skilled labour at ordinary farm-wages, and reckon- 
ing the performance per day from the high-pressure celerity of execution kept 
up through the sinu-t of a short race. Indeed, the number of competing sets 
of powerful machinery, each with its several different kinds of tillage to bc- 
shown in operation, and executing peihaps at the rate of three or more acres 
l)er hour, added to the necessary grouping of the machines into four separate 
classes involving repetitions of performance, forbade anything more extended 
than short runs upon plots of a few acres apiece, notwithstanding that the Society 
had provided 140 acres of light land near Wolverhampton and 60 acres of 
heavy land near Stafibrd for the purpose of giving full play to the operations. 
The steam-cultivator trials of 1871 naturally resolved themselves into public 
exhibitions of the several systems in work, the consideration of the Judges 
being mainly devoted to the quality of the tillage performed, to tlie rapiditj- 
and cheapness of execution as made apparent by the labour engaged, to the 
engineering tests of power exerted, and to the obvious mechanical merits anrt 
capabilities of the machinery. 
The Barnhurst Farm in the occupation of Mr. Taylor, forming part of the- 
estate on which the Wolverhampton sewage is being utilized, is situated two 
miles north-west from the Show-yard gates,and approached by narrow uphill and 
downhill lanes after leaving the Tettenhall turnpike-road ; and here as much of 
the steam-cultivating apparatus as had arrived at the Wolverhampton railway- 
stations and been transported up country, was found on Monda\% June 2Cth, in 
the depot-field. No. VI. (see Plan, p. 481), where stores for coal and oil had been 
provided ; and the engineers had dammed a stream and erected a pump for 
supplying the water-carts at rather more than a quarter of a mile from this- 
central point. As appears from the jilan, the seven fields made use of range 
from 14 to 26 acres in area, some of them of an awkward shape for partition 
into rectangular plots ; the fences are mainly of quick, planted uiion high 
banks, and the surface presents only gentle undulations, no part lying in high- 
backed ridge and furrow. The crops were principally clover and seeds and 
jiart vetches. The old seeds had been closely grazed, the young seeds and vetches^ 
mown green and carted oft', and the land lor the most part may be described' 
as a sandy loam containing gravel upon a sandy subsoil, which in many places 
])resented beds of big sandstone and other boulders severely trying to the 
deep-working implements. The ])rincipal portion of the deiiot field No. VI., 
18 acres of barley-seeds, was divided into plots of about one acre each, upon 
which the several competitors might make their " jireliminary canter " and 
arrange their machinery in good working order; the soil, a light sand 
loam of considerable depth, and in a moist, free-working condition, being well' 
suited for the purpose. On Plot 1, Mes.-irs. Amies, Barford, and Co., of Peter- 
borough, did some good cultivating, ploughing, and digging, with their round- 
