the Royal Agricultural Society. 23 
their work. Btrt the desideratum of the present day is to ascer- 
tain the best mode of utilizing, for the purposes of cultivation, 
the many thousand engines which have been already sent out to 
farmers or small capitalists, and whose average nominal strength 
is probably about seven horse-power. 
Two ways of accomplishing this may be mentioned. The 
first is, to reduce the Work to be ■performed. Instead of using a 
plough turning three or four furrows, it is perfectly practicable 
to use one turning two only, and all the other implements may 
be reduced in proportion. The reduction in the amount of 
work done in a given time would not be important on small 
farms ; and though the owner of the engine would have to charge 
a higher rate per acre, it would still answer to the farmer to pay 
for the use of a steam-plough at particular seasons, in order to 
break up some unusually stubborn fields, which were quite beyond 
the strength of his team. 
The other plan would be, to combine two engines of moderate 
calibre, and thus obtain power sufficient to get through the 
heaviest kind of work. This method has been introduced by 
several makers, and their respective modes of applying the 
power of the twin-engines, either alternately or jointly, has 
been clearly described in Mr. Algernon Clarke's very able and 
valuable article on the Progress of Steam-cultivation, in the last 
number of the Journal.* Hitherto the men who let out steam- 
thrashing machines have feared to take up steam-ploughing, 
partly because the demand has not yet become sufficiently 
general, and partly because a 12-horse engine is too costly, and 
unnecessarily powerful for the work on which they would be 
engaged for the greater portion of their time. Steam-ploughing, 
even when it became general, would not be sufficiently con- 
tinuous to pay, unless the engine could go to some other work 
when the land was soft ; but if at particular times of year one 
engine could be sent with a two-furrow plough to a small farm, 
and two engines with a larger cultivating apparatus for a heavier 
job, the business of steam-cultivation might be profitably com- 
bined with that of steam-thrashing. 
These two methods would be equally available to the occupier 
of a small farm as to the owner of engines who lets them for 
hire. An engine of 7 or 8 horse-power would pay well on a 
farm of 250 or 300 acres of arable land, if in addition to its ser- 
vices in the barn it could also, when required, plough effectually 
3 or 4 acres of strong clay per diem ; and for any work of especial 
urgency or difficulty, two neighbours might unite their forces, 
and thus obtain sufficient command of power. 
' Journal,' vol. xxiv. p. §62. 
