406 Five Years Progress of Steam Cultivation. 
It must not be concluded that because several or many steam- 
farmers are, by their own showing, augmenting their produce 
by 4 to 8 bushels of corn per acre, and largely increasing the bulk 
of their roots and green food, while at the same time clearing some 
hundreds of pounds per annum by the mere difference between 
the expenses of steam and animal tillage {see Table of Annual 
Saving) — that because enterprising men have wrought stubborn 
clays into garden-ground, from which fortunes are being realised 
— therefore the steam plough is everywhere to be credited with in- 
creased yields of cropping and splendid profits in all cases and 
upon any soil. There are numbers of examples of light and other 
lands where as yet no marked difference has been perceptible in 
the crops, and the benefits of steam tillage have been confined 
to facilitating operations and diminishing the general farm ex- 
penditure. The steam plough has, indeed, done wonderful things 
upon some — by no means upon all — strong lands that its share 
has pierced : on many lighter lands it has proved of signal though 
more moderate advantage ; and there remain some sands and thin 
weak soils where tillage is so cheap and so comparatively un- 
important a part of farm management, that the question is still 
open, whether steam can successfully displace there the active, 
quick-stepping team. These, however, are very exceptional 
cases : a reference to my collated instances of experience shows 
that the expedition and facilities of steam culture far outweigh 
the mere question of comparative cost per acre by steam and 
horses. Where a pair of horses can plough with ease a full acre 
per day, the small saving in cost which may be obtained by sub- 
stituting steam for horse power, would scarcely warrant the 
venture. But having sold off teams that could plough, say 3 or 
4 acres a-day, you replace them with a machine that can plough 
8 or 10 acres a-day at the same depth, and that can accomplish 
autumn tillage more valuable than horses could perform at all. 
I am a reporter of performances ; not a dogmatic referee con- 
cerning the merits of rival machinery. Still, a few words are 
indispensable on the competing claims of the stationary engine 
and of the engine moveable along the headland of afield. Partisans 
of either principle are too ready to make light of serious defi- 
ciencies in their favourite apparatus, or to push minor advantages 
to an extreme ; and hence great misapprehensions have arisen in 
the minds of inquirers anxious to procure that form of steam 
plough best suited to their particular circumstances. Neither- 
systcm possesses superiority over its opponent in every point 
upon which you can place them in comparison ; and if you deem 
one to have a balance of advantages over the other, the decision 
will have been governed by the relative importance of certain 
facilities or shortcomings when applied to your especial case. » 
