This is a great era for English agriculture. Mr. Evelyn
Denison, the Speaker of the House of Commons,. has written an enthusiastic letter about the steam cultivation of strong clay lands to General Peel, who had implored him to- send some brief agricultural gospel to the agricultural county of Hunts.—" The event most interesting to farmers that has occurred lately," he says, "especially to farmers cultivating strong clay lands, is the proved success of steam cultivation. . . . . It happened this spring that a fine.farm of be- tween 600 and 700 acres of clay land came into my hands in a very bad state from a slovenly tenant. It seemed to me the time was come to call in the aid-of-eteam. I adopted the machine of Mr. Smith, of Woolston. During the dry weather of the month of May, when the land was baked as hard as a brick, and when no implement moved by horses could make any impression, my 10 horse-power steam-engine began its work, smashing and breaking up the land in a manner that was quite surprising. The farmersof the neighbourhood came to- look on, and there was not a dissentient voice ; every one said, 'This is what we want; this is the way to fallow clay laud.'" The first cost of the machinery is 500/. Where the ground is very hard the cost (independently of interest on out- lay) the first time over is 6d., the second 3d. per acre. And the work is so superior to work done by homes that many farmers said they would rather pay 1/., or even 1/. 10s. per acre, to have their land so broken up. The steam plough will break up the stiff clay of the soil; but what shall penetrate the stiffer clay of the agricultural labourer's mind, often baked, we fear, even harder than a brick? Perhaps, after all, the steam plough which does the one may indirectly lead to the application of an educational plough, not quite so mechanical, to do the other also.
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