Practical Agriculture. 
639 = 375 
>untry, deep under-drainage, the laying down of new grass and 
ic cleansing of old and foul tillage land, completely remodelled 
•e estate. Ten miles' length of straggling hedge-rows were 
ubbed ; their removal adding just ten acres to the area avail- 
)le for cultivation. Sound hard roads enable the steam-engine 
! traverse all parts of the farms in any weather ; the fields are 
laid out as to be most convenient alike for the single stationary 
igine or the double moving-engine systems of steam cultivation, 
he stationary engine can grapple with 10, 20, 30, and up to 55 
res at one " setting down ;" and the drainage has been designed 
1 that it replenishes a tank or open pond at every site occupied 
k the engine during the tillage of the whole estate ; these tanks 
[taining supplies at all seasons, and letting only the overflow 
ss away by the mains which ultimately conduct it to the River 
'ise. At the principal farmstead, a reservoir, cheaply excavated 
} the clay, holds half a million gallons of water. A consider- 
le proportion of the estate now has a deep brown staple soil, 
to 14 inches in thickness, lying upon a homogeneous clay, 
t before steam-culture was practised there were but a few 
hes of the soil above the raw tenacious " gaulty " clay which 
Is now, to so great a depth, been changed by deep stirring and 
.'ration into a dark unctuous earth. It is to be remarked that 
1|? gradual levelling of the old high-backed " lands " over a 
' eet deep drainage, has caused no difficulty in the downward 
Icration of the rain ; but the whole of the fields drain well 
i the wettest of seasons. 
The steam tackle is not employed merely as an auxiliary to 
t;; ordinary farm teams, to do little more than break up stubbles 
i autumn and perhaps cross-cultivate in spring ; but steam- 
]iWer executes all the heavy tillage, leaving only the lighter 
pcesses and the haulage of manure and of produce to be per- 
i med by horses. Thus, in preparing for a mangold crop, the 
\ eat-stubble, instead of being "smashed up" after harvest and 
It for horse-implements to reduce and ridge in the spring, is at 
(ice ridged by a powerful double-breasted plough, the open 
tnches between the 27-inch wide ridges being simultaneously 
I 'ted up by a subsoil tine on the same implement. Frosts and 
<J er wintry influences moulder the exposed surface of these 
r ges into a fine tilth ; and, in spring, farmyard-manure is 
allied, the ridges are torn down by the steam cultivator driven 
J OSS, and the seed-bed is ready for artificial manure and the 
iingold seed to be put in by the drill. 
[Messrs. Howard, like many occupiers of clay land who use 
tdr form of machinery, cultivate, plough, ridge-plough, subsoil, 
<fig, harrow, and also drill by the power of their " Farmer's 
J igine." 
VOL. XIV.— S.S. 2 X 
