Steam Cultivation. 
331 
There can be no doubt but that such cultivation is as irrational 
as it is expensive, and that steam is most anxiously looked t« as 
a power which, in theory at least, offers a satisfactory solution of 
the question. With the traction-power stationary, or at least 
confined to the headland, the poaching and pounding of the soil 
is almost entirely avoided ; the ploughs also, instead of sliding 
along with their whole weight, forming a sole or pan, hard, 
glazed, and impervious, are supported by wheels ; while the 
consolidation caused by the pressure of those weight-carrying 
wheels is erased and obliterated by a grubbing-tine which follows 
behind. 
What, then, is the result of the combination of these favourable 
circumstances ? It would be an easy matter summarily to dispose 
of this question by expressing a general opinion that the porosity 
of the soil is much improved by the process ; but with whatever 
good faith such a general declaration might be made, still in the 
absence of comparative facts, its value practically would be but 
small,* because men of different temperaments, enthusiastic or 
otherwise, might give widely different colouring to the same set 
of circumstances. 
We have had several opportunities of making side by side com- 
parisons of the effects of cultivation by horse and steam power on 
the percolating powers of the soil, when other conditions were in 
every respect the same, and the result has been that the evidence 
in favour of the latter was in every instance unmistakeable. 
The first remarkable case which came under our notice was in 
the autumn of 1860, in a field very stiff" and naturally impervious 
in soil and subsoil, which, having been deeply drained during the 
previous winter, was cultivated and sown with turnips in the 
course of the summer. 
The field was in a , S 
trapezoidal form, as 
shown in the margin, 
with a road running 
along one side of it, 
on which the engine 
travelled while en- 
gaged in the cultiva- 
tion. The eastern 
boundary fence lay in 
a line nearly perjien- 
dicular to the road, and formed a good starting-point for the 
steam-cultivator. When the spot indicated by the dotted line 
was reached, we had the alternative of either wasting time by 
working the steam-plough in short and decreasing lengths, or, as 
was done, leaving the remainder to be ploughed with horses. 
