Five Years' Progress of Steam Cultivation. 
393 
I think tliat evidence is now coming up pretty strongly in 
support of two of my propositions — namely, that our existing 
steam-cultivators far surpass horse-implements both in cheapitess 
and fjiiiehness of execution. Examples given show that, in some 
cases at any rate, a twelve-horse power steam-engine will perform 
a day's work equivalent to that of a force of thirty or forty draught 
horses ; and what an advantage this must be in a pressing 
season — when despatch will often make the difference not simply 
between a full equable crop and a patchy thin one, but between 
a fair yield and no crop at all — let the farmer himself judge, 
who cannot afford to feed throughout the year anything like the 
number of teams that be could deal with at certain critical 
periods of his tilling and seeding. 
The question as to relative economy and the balance-sheet 
between steam and animal power, in the long run, or when the 
whole year's work is taken into account, will appear Irom the next 
set of tables. And let it be understood that the cases here given 
are not picked examples, but those concerning which, whether 
favourable or otherwise, I have been able to get approximate 
details. In the tables of Messrs. Howard's cultivator (for instance) 
it is probable that ^Ir. Pike of Stevington, having displaced 
eight horses upon 370 acres arable, could show a better ba- 
lance than appears in some of the cases given. The sums set 
down for total annual cost of the steam-machine are either war- 
ranted by printed statements of the parties employing it, or else 
founded upon estimates of competent reporters of the several 
cases in the agricultural press. Exceptions may be taken to my 
charges of 45/. per horse and 20/. per ox per annum (that is, for 
half the oxen kept, as these were either worked and rested on 
alternate days, or worked every day for only part of a year). 
One farmer's teams may cost him about double the expense 
of another's. However, the statistical averages from 21 farms, 
comprising 282 horses, described in Mr. Morton's paper ' On 
the Cost of Horse-power' (vol. xix. of this Journal), are as 
follows : — food, 23/. ; blacksmiths', saddlers', farriers' bills, and 
depreciation (or maintenance of value unimpaired), 5/. IO5. ; 
annual wear of implements, 3/. 2^. ; share of wages of team-men, 
14/. 8s. ; making a total of 46/. per horse. Mr. Frere's valuation, in 
his paper on 'Steam Culture ' (vol. xxi. of this Journal), is 41/. per 
horse. As to ox-teams, the systems of working and management 
are so exceedingly various that a general average is not easily ob- 
tained ; but taking every source of expense into calculation, and 
allowing (in some cases) for the annual improvement instead of 
deterioration of the animal, I do not think my arbitrary estimate 
of 20/. per ox much too high. I am not careful to insist upon 
exact and proper values in these computations of annual saving 
in 
