398 
Five Years Proffrcss of Steam Cultivation. 
in the cost of draught tillage ; because the profit of steam-culture 
does not consist chiefly in the cheapness of the work. While 
some men win a balance of several hundred pounds per annum 
by substituting steam for a portion of their farm-teams, other 
managers, more especially upon clay soils, find no material dif- 
ference in their outlay since adopting the steam-plough or culti- 
vator ; and the experience of some, indeed, is that the yearly cost 
of their tillage is considerably increased. But even where no 
horses have been displaced, and the steam-cultivator has been 
purchased as an auxiliary power and facility entirely additional 
to the previous tillage force of the farm, the investment is re- 
ported as satisfactory — owing to advantages in saving of time, 
superior quality of work done, &c., resulting 'in more and better 
crops. Where a direct money-saving is cleared as well, the 
steam-plough must be earning a really handsome profit. On 
these points testimony shall be adduced presently. The present 
tables show, however, that in many cases a large saving is effected 
in the yearly expenditure. It will be seen that the earnings of 
the steam-apparatus let out on hire have not been taken into 
consideration. Had this been done, the pecuniary gain in many 
of the cases would present a much larger figure. 
Enough having been advanced to prove the cheapness as well 
as expedition of steam-tillage, I have now to consider its superior 
efficiency in comparison with the work of the team. I need not 
discuss all the various elements of this superiority ; as greater 
depth, more effectual severing and disintegration of the masses 
broken up or overturned, the larger extent of superficies exposed 
to atmospheric contact and influence, the light, untrampled state 
in which the shattered staple is left, the unpressed, unpoached 
condition of the furrow-bottom, the absence of the planting of 
root-weeds by horses' feet, the exposure of weeds to destruction 
upon the surface, or, at other seasons, their being killed by 
premature burial under the furrow-slice. To these numerous 
sources of mechanical excellence have to be added such points as 
the facility for drag-hanowing, clod-crushing, seam-pressing, or 
seed-drilling, by wire-rope traction, without the tread of a hoof, 
either simultaneously with the ploughing, digging, or grubbing, 
or as distinct and supplementary operations ; and the power also 
of performing other processes — such as raftering, ridging for 
root-crops, and subsoiling or trenching two furrows deep. All 
these things, and more, are being practised by various farmeis 
with the new motive-power. 
The superiority of steam tillage arises also from its economy 
of time. A steam-plough may accomplish day by day the work 
of 12 to 20, or even 30 horses ; in a long day it may do the work 
of 40 horses ; so that, on pressing occasions, the farmer possesses 
