420 
Steam Culture. 
I am not prepared to endorse this statement : it is not self- 
evident to me how it arises out of the schedule of work executed 
on the Whitfield Farm, given in Journal, vol. xix., page 464. 
As a light-land farmer, I have known that, though our demand 
for horse-labour is unequal, the clay-land farmer has to provide 
for much greater inequalities. But 1 can hardly think that, 
practically, even clay-land farmers have more than twice the 
power on their farm that they can beneficially employ ; and if 
any man came to me saying " I have thoroughly ascertained that 
such are my circumstances," (apart from the question of steam- 
culture), I should be disposed to answer, " Surely you could 
revise your scheme of management a little, so as to make it more 
economical." 
Whether, however, we take this estimate to be conclusive as 
it stands or not, it is most suggestive, as pointing to the great 
advantage of occupations including a variety of soils, on which, 
if well managed, a portion of sandy heath may be cultivated at 
very little extra cost, so as to leave hardly more than three or 
four idle weeks in a year ; as putting in the strongest light the 
value of a subsidiary agent, which costs but little except when at 
work ; and — which is to our special purpose — as justifying a rate 
of charge much above the average of the year for those months 
in spring and autumn where steam may Ije a substitute for the 
horse. 
In farming calculations, I am disposed to set almost every 
item at a rather lower rate than is generally found in agricul- 
tural treatises, in which hardly a sufiicient distinction seems to 
te made between what maij be done under favourable and 
exciting influences, and what is done on the average of farms 
and seasons. A distinct service is rendered to Agriculture when 
its maxima are brought under our view as such, to gauge our 
short-comings, and stimulate our energies ; but the very con- 
sciousness of what may be done, and the ability to accomplish 
more than is commonly done, may lead men to over-estimate 
average performances. 
Indeed we do not generally even attempt to do all we might 
do, and that for a sound economical reason, — our primary object 
being to distribute the labour of both man and horse over the 
year with as little inequality as may be. 
To this end, although in harvest-time it is common for a man 
in one day "to pitch in an hour's time an acre of a good crop 
of wheat, tied in sheaves, to an average height of full G feet, on 
the cart or waggon " — and, " straw and corn together, such a crop 
will weigh more than 2 tons, say 5000 lbs.," and "in doing this 
he therefore lifts 300,000 lbs. one foot high in ten hours' time, 
or 5000 lbs. per minute " — to quote one of Mr. Morton's illus- 
