Five Years Progress of Steam Cultivation. 409 
entire area in one great field, apportioned into blocks or plots for 
steam culture. Main roads cross it at rigtt angles ; and these 
again are cut at various points bv minor roads maintained as 
permanent headlands for the traversing engine. The plots are 
about 50 acres each ; and the engine-ways are so arranged that 
the plots do not exceed 400 yards from headland to headland. It 
need hardly be said that by this spirited proceeding some- 
thing like 10 acres have been added to the available tillage area 
of the farm. Mr. Prout, of Sawbridgevvorth, on 450 acres of 
heavy arable land, is throwing down nearly all except boundary- 
hedges, filling up ditches, and dividing the farm into blocks 
separated by grass roads for the travelling engine, the length of 
furrow varying from 300 to 400 yards. There will be five of 
these roads, with one hard road for the main traffic, between the 
two homesteads. These changes will throw about 25 additional 
acres into cultivation. The roads, too, are supplied with .five 
wells or reservoirs, sunk to catch the water of drainage or natural 
springs. Mr. Ruck of Cricklade has thrown his farm into 70- 
acre fields, by grubbing up five miles of hedgerows. ' The Earl 
of Leicester at Holkham, Mr. Edwards of East Leach, Mr. 
Williams of Baydon, and other direct-action ploughmen, have 
similarly provided large rectangular fields and hard headland 
roads. 
Of course, adopters of the stationary-engine plan also find the 
vast importance of large straight-sided inclosures, in saving time 
and labour ; and Baron Rothschild of INIentmore, Mr. Arm- 
strong of Graffham, Mr. Cranfield of Buckden, Mr. Bradshaw 
of Knowle, Mr. Pike of Stevington, and others, might be referred 
to as having cleared away hedgerows and field-timber, copses 
and spinneys, filled up straggling water-courses, and remodelled 
farms and estates, to give free range to the wire-rope and shifted 
grappling anchors. For look at the loss occasioned by small 
Jields : in the first place, from the excessive number of removals ; 
and, in the next place, from the multiplied number of turn- 
ings ot the implement at the land's end. The time occupied in 
a shift from one field to another may be taken as a quarter of a 
day, though when the distance is small the time occupied is often 
less than two hours. In ploughing fields of 15 acres — that is, 
two days' work each — a quarter of a day is sacrificed for every 
two full days of ploughing. If the fields be of 60 acres each, 
this same loss Avould occur only after eight days of actual work : 
that is to say, the loss of time by removals would be only one- 
fourth for the same area of Avork done. Throw the calculation 
into time or money, and it appears that it takes you three-quarters 
of a day longer to prepare 60 acres of seed-bed in four fields than 
to prepare the same area in one field ; and assuming the total 
