to the Cultivation of the Land. 
215 
ridged-up for winter exposure, at a cost, from first to last, of 
some 20s. to 2^s. per acre, and in a splendid condition for brino;- 
ing a heavy crop of mangolds ; yet had the only available 
motive-power been the largest force of horse-flesh that could be 
reasonably kept upon tlie farm, these 20 acres would have been 
unavoidablv left to undergo a course of several winter and spring 
ploughings and sculilings, etc., at a cost of perhaps 3/. per acre, 
and then very likely not have been ready for bearing a root crop, 
and certainly in a much closer and sadder condition of texture 
than it is wrought into by the steam-cultivating and ample winter 
exposure. 
Of Mr. Pike's 75 acres of fallow break, a portion has always 
been a dead summer fallow ; the rest, tares, mangold, swedes, 
and common turnips : now, however, he will be able to have 
it all under crop. Instead of only 8 acres, he will have 16 
acres of mangolds : there are 30 acres of vetches growing, after a 
portion of which, he will get a crop of rape, as tlie tare-stubble 
will be broken up in summer by the steam-engine. His present 
wheat crop, too, was got in vastly earlier than the farm ever knew 
before ; all the seeding having been finisb.ed by the end of 
October. Mr. Pike formerly worked 15 horses every Michael- 
mas ; this year he has "never had more than 11 collars on;" 
and the teams have rests as well, having had little to do since 
the middle of November, though previously they all used to be 
thoroughly worked down. The four horses disposed of have, in 
fact, gone a considerable way towards buying the cultivator- 
tackle ; and as another item of gain, the labourers' wages have 
been considerably lightened during the winter, owing to the 
work having been so largely forwarded in autumn by the steam- 
machinery. I should state that Mr. Pike has the ropes originally 
supplied to him, but the amount of cultivating done has ren- 
dered them unequal to excessively hard operations, such as 
breaking up sun-baked lea-ground in summer, and hence he has 
been obliged to have a new set of steel ropes for such purposes, 
reserving the old ones for lighter operations. 
On the same day that I went over Mr. Pike's farm I saw on 
Mr. Charles Howard's " Priory Farm," just out of Bedford, a 
piece of land laid up for fallow in the very best possible manner. 
The soil is a good loam, resting upon a yellow clay subsoil ; 
the field had been a cleanish wheat-stubble, broken up 8 inches 
in depth by the steam grubbing-implement and afterwards 
crossed with a horse-cultivator. It was then thrown up into 
27-inch ridges by means of a double mould-board or bouting 
plough, drawn by 2 horses, part of the piece being very deeply 
worked in this way by yoking 4 horses to the plougli. Finally, 
Read's subsoiler was made to tear up the bottom of each open 
