Oil the Moveable Steam-Engine. 
203 
moveable straw-stands when the wheat-straw requires stacking. 
The late incendiary fires have unhappily deterred many neigh- 
bourhoods from concentiating their stacks .around the homestead, 
according to the old practice. 
The cojnmon consumption of coals is at the rate of 6 cwt. per 
day when barley is threshed, or 7 cwt. for wheat. The coals are 
furnislicd by the hirer, and their consumption will be a good deal 
modified by the kind of water with which he supplies the 
engine ; with good soft clean water, drawn from a tank filled 
from a slated barn, less coal will be burnt by 1 cwt. or 1 J cwt. a 
day than when the water comes from a dirty pond. It is a happy 
circumstance for the owner of the engine that the hirer has sucli 
an inducement to supply clean water, as the injury done to the 
engine and boiler (the tubes of which become furred up and foul 
whenever dirty water is used) is a matter of far more importance 
than the saving of 1 cwt. or 2 cwt. of coal. 
For some years we have never used a flail. The prejudice in 
favour of fresh'flail-threshed straw from the barn-door, for fodder, 
lingered on in my bailiff's mind for some seasons after I had begun, 
to employ steam-power. Chance removed it in this way. We gene- 
rally arrange to use the white land barley-straw for fodder, and 
that grown on heath land for litter. One year the fodder ran short, 
and we had recourse to some heath barley-straw, which had been 
machined and stacked some time before, to eke out our supply 
for food. The stock were observed to eat this straw with more 
relish than any of the growth of that year. From that time the 
flail was doomed. The preference shown was accounted for in 
this manner: — 1st, all the dust had been well beaten, shaken, 
and blown out of the straw by the machine ; and, 2nd, the 
straw, which contained some admixture of layer, had been 
bruised in threshing, and appeared to have undergone a second 
gentle heating after it was stacked, and to have benefited by it ; 
but, be the explanation what it may, we were satisfied of the 
fact, and have since acted on our conviction. 
My machines only winnow the corn once ; a single dressing 
then fits it for market. The advantage of a light machine for 
draught on hilly ground and indifferent farm-roads, and the 
difficulty of dressing at once, so as just to suit the market, have 
determined me, after some hesitation, to abide by the older and 
simpler form, in preference to the new double-dresser. 
A connexion with steam-power let out on hire is conducive to 
the well-being of a farm in several ways : — 1st, as an encourage- 
ment to steady and intelligent labourers ; these are selected from 
the farm at first to feed the machine, and are then promoted 
to the charge of the engine ; an opening for advancement is thus 
afforded to a class which stands much in need of such a stimu- 
