422 
Steam Culture. 
the dead season, Avitli the prospect of buying again ; and the 
horse, if kept, must be fairly kept up, and may as well do some 
work for his livelihood. The man, feeling some of the draw- 
backs as well as advantages of not being a " chattel," has to trust 
to kindness and discernment, with the poor-law in the back- 
ground, to save him from destitution ;* and for his sake it is 
specially important that wisdom and humanity should combine 
to check a disposition to short-sighted saving, and, by a happy- 
adjustment of farming operations, secure him steady employment. 
In this point of view one detail connected with steam-culti- 
vation is really a misfortune, rather than, as it has been com- 
monly regarded, a matter of congratulation. Most writers 
have stated correctly and with satisfaction that nearly as much 
manual labour is now required in connection with steam cul- 
tivation as that done by horses : but if we may rightly assume 
that this cultivation is to be effected in the six or seven 
busiest months in the year, I can hardly share their feeling. I 
should hail with equal satisfaction any auxiliary which offered 
either to diminish the demand for labour at our busy season, or 
to increase it at our slack time. We no longer suffer, thanks be to 
God, from an absolute plethora of strong willing hands ; at 
present our social and moral well-being turn upon the extent to 
which forces, confessedly not in excess of our wants at one time, 
may be utilised at other seasons. The more steam-power tends 
to restore this equilibrium, the more valuable it is. Paradoxical 
as it may seem, the less the steam-cultivator requires of manual 
labour, the more it Avill benefit the British labourer. 
To return, however, to the cost of horse-power. I haA'e 
endeavoured to base my estimates on that which is customary in 
my part of England ; on that custom such considerations as I 
have just alluded to have probably exerted a greater influence 
than we ourselves are aware of. By slackening our exertions at 
times we have more nearly gained continuity of action, and in 
so doing have acted on sound economic principles, although this 
slackness has probably become too habitual, so that increased 
exertion when required could not be freely made, from being 
strange ; or would not, from suspicion that it would not be duly 
valued and paid for. 
First, as to the number of days' work performed in a year. 
Allowing for sickness and lameness, i^c, and the effects of rain 
and snow, particularly on clay soils, I do not propose to estimate 
these at more than 250. Next as to the number of hours' work 
per day. That management which commonly assigns 7^ hours, 
* If he has a garden allotment, he may very well do all the heavy work required 
to prepare the ground in the late autumn and winter. 
