686 
In Memoriam: 
Jolin Algernon Clarke, 
■who was the first of the three to lav down his pen, was born in 
the year 1828. The son of a Lincolnshire farmer, who was 
himself well known as an agi'icultiiral writer and as a judge in 
the show-yard (Mr. John Clarke of Long Sutton), his thoughts 
were early directed to that interesting tract of land all round 
him known as the Fen Country. During the first half of the 
Royal Agricultural Society's existence an important part of its 
annual programme was the giving of prizes of substantial amount 
for the best essays on selected subjects. For the year 1847 one 
of the twelve subjects for essays was " the Great Level of the 
Fens," and John Algernon Clarke, who could then have been 
only nineteen years of age, won the prize of oOl. with a remark- 
ably luminous and well ai'ranged essay, which appeared in Vol. 
VIII. of the Journal (1847). No doubt encouraged by his 
success, we find him in 1850 competing again for and •n'inuing 
a prize of 50/. on the •' Farming of Lincolnshire," a subject on 
which he was peculiarly fitted to treat. His very elaborate prize 
essay on this subject takes up 155 pages of Vol. XII. of the 
Journal (1851), and may still be read with interest and profit.' 
A third prize of 50/. was granted to him in 1854 for another 
essay on " Trunk Drainage," which appeared in Vol. XV. (1854). 
The list of essays for the year 1859 contained a reference 
to a subject which Mr. Clarke made his own, and to which the 
Society for several years devoted much time and money, viz. 
" the application of steam power to the cultivation of the laud." 
;Mr. Clarke won the prize of 25/. for the best essay on this ques- 
tion, and his paper appears in Vol. XX. of the Journal (1859). 
Four years later (in Vol. XXIV. 18G3), he wrote an article on 
Five Years' Progress of Steam Cultivation," in which he 
summed up the " mechanical improvements and practical results 
which since [liis former paper] had made steam tillage the pre- 
eminent triumph of modern English agriculture." 
At the general meeting of the Society in ]\Iay 1866, the 
Council announced that " the application of steam to the culti- 
vation of the soil had received their careful attention, and they 
considered that the time had anived when an attempt should 
be made to arrive at the results which had been obtained by its 
use on different soils or in different localities." Accordingly, 
Inspection Committees were appointed to visit such farms as a 
' Note, for example, the use made of it by Mr. Freclk. I. Cooke, in his Report 
in the present number on the Farm Competition in Kottinghamsliire and 
Lincolnshire. 
