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SCARIFIERS; IMPORTANCE AND ECONOMY OF THEIR USE.
"Class IX.
Now, it lias been found that if immediately after harvestthe wheat land be not ploughed, but pared at a depth of2 inches only, the couch, the cause of so much labour,is intercepted before it has penetrated the ground, andall that future toil becomes needless. Tills work is donewith the scarifier. The saving of labour is easily cal-culated, if we only compare the breadth of the scarifier,whichever it be, for there are many of them, with thebreadth of the plough. Thus our ploughs make a !furrow nearly nine inches wide, and are drawn by two !horses. Coleman’s scarifier, one of the best for hard |ground, is 5 feet wide (seven times as wide), and is jdrawn by six horses. These three pair, therefore, will :cover as much ground as seven pair at plough, and thelabour, accordingly, would not be half of one ploughing.There must afterwards be one good ploughing given tolay up the land for the mellowing effect of the winter’sfrost. In the spring the land can be once more stirredwith a wider scarifier (Biddle’s, 6J feet wide), whichwould go deeper, the land being looser, with four horsesonly. As this implement is equal in width to 8.^ ploughs,four horses would thus be doing the work of sixteen.The operation will in labour be only a quarter-ploughing.There are saved, besides, in spring, infinite harrowingsand rollings, which will defray the expense of drillingthe turnips.
Again with regard to the barley-sowing after turnips,it used to be good farming, as I have said, to ploughtwice. But iu order to save ammonia, it is still betterto pare the land as quickly as the sheepfold is shifted.This may be done by Kilby’s or Bentall’s paring-plough,and may be set down as a half-ploughing. The frostmellows the surface, and four horses scarifying at seed-time will make it fit for the drill. This last operationmay he set down as one-third of a ploughing. We maynow examine what saving of labour has been producedby this new class of implements :—
OH System.Ploughings,
Roots 4 -
Barley 2 -Clover 0 -"Wheat 1 -
{ One scarifyingOne ploughingOne scarifyingOne do.One do.
New Svstom.Ploughings.- - *
- - 1 "
- - i
work. Hence arises often the necessity of draggingthem a second time crossways over the same piece ofground. Coleman’s scarifier never rises or swerves, butdoes its work as true as a plough, doing it therefore oncefor all. This is a decided advance, aud greatly facili-tates the substitution of the scarifier for the plough.For the mere paring of a very tight surface, however,even Coleman’s may be sometimes too broad, and Ben-tall’s narrow one is excellent for that purpose. Its longsnout, like a swordfish’s horn, is au ingenious device bywhich it is enabled to adhere to the land. This cheapimplement has also received a prize as a stibsoil plough ;and though it be a good rule that no implement shoulddo more than one thing, an exception must be clearlymade here.
Another cheap paring plough, Kilby’s, should be men-tioned though not in the Exhibition, because it has thepeculiar merit of turning over as well as paring the land.
In limiting, as has been done above, the number ofploughings, the new system of winter cropping has beenpassing over, because those extra crops, green rye ortares, winter peas or beans, would more than pay for theirextra ploughing. Taking the old system simply, andworking it with new tools, we see that common stock landneed be ploughed twice only instead of eight times infour years—once after clover, when the green leaves mustbe turned down and the dung perhaps be covered in,which the plough only can do, and once, in order to stirthe land deeply for root crops, and lay it rough for thewinter frosts. I will venture to add what may appeartheoretical—that, if ever steam be successfully employedin cultivation, it will probably be less by ploughing ordigging than with an implement like one of these culti-vators, because they are able to work so much wider aspace as they pass long in their course. This plan ofautumn-cleaning is the more valuable because it is apractice of actual farmers. When we hear of wheatbeing grown on alternate portions of the same field everyyear, such an experiment is highly interesting in a scien-tific view, yet we feel certain that it cannot becomegeneral; hut when we know that good farmers are yearlyextending the practice of autumn-cleaning upon stockland, we arc assured that whatever be its advantages theywill be generally available upon land of that characterFrom the preparation of land we may now proceed to
7 3*
Thus it appears that cultivators will spare just one-half of the horse labour employed on the plough, doingthe work, too, as well or better. Adopting the standardof economy as the test of their merit, we find that, if aploughing be valued at 8s., they can save 7s. an aeroyearly over the whole of an arable farm. And we mayadopt this calculation in their favour more confidently,because by other means an equal saving of horse-workcan be made at other seasons in other descriptions ofwork. Some exceptions to this general use of cultivatorswill occur of course to every farmer; but the substitutionof them for the plough has long been known to manygood farmers, though probably it has not as yet beencarried out upon system by any one of them to its fullestextent.
These implements were not originally intended forstirring hard ground, but were gradually developed outof the harrow, which was mounted on wheels, with aview to the raising of loose couch out of ploughedground, a use which autumnal cleaning will soon, itmay be hoped, make obsolete.
Of the prize cultivators, Biddle’s, by Messrs. Raxsome,is one of the oldest, and still one of the best. The widthgives it great steadiness, and its leverage is good, thoughwearing an awkward appearance. Many attempts havebeen made to remove this defect, but none so successfulas the simple straight levers by which the other prizescarifier, Coleman’s, is lifted out of the ground. Sincethe trial I have used Coleman’s implement, and find itsuperior to other wide scarifiers. For these implementshave hitherto had two defects. They sometimes risepartially out of the ground, and sometimes swerve intheir course; thus in each case missing a part of their
II. Implements used in the Cultivation of Crops.
1. Drills.
The sower with his seed-lip has almost vanished fromsouthern England, driven out by a complicated machine,the drill, depositing the seed in rows, and drawn byseveral horses. Here, at least, one would suppose thatthere must be an increase of expense in the new operation,and, above all, an increase of horse labour; but even herethere is, or may be, sometimes at least, on the contrary,a diminution. For though we observe only the oneseedsman striding over the fallow, he is followed bymachinery—the drags and the harrows—which, thoughsimple enough, yet, as they repeatedly traverse the land,run up to a formidable amount the horse-work expendedin this primitive method of sowing.
In Mr. Ilaxton’s Prize Essay upon Oats, which is justpublished,* we find the following passage:—
Sowing/ and Harrowing .—The general practice in Scotland is to sow oats broadcast on the winter furrow, and to coveriu the seed by two, three, or four harrows coupled together
and drawn by as many horses.Six harrows, three
and three together, and drawn by six horses and driven bytwo men, follow the sower, and give a double stroke in thedirection of the ridges.
Three more strokes, five altogether, suffice, as Mr.Haxton informs us, on friable land, bat on an old sward,the amount of horse-work expended is really wonderful.
Old tough lea or wet-ploughed land requires a far greateramount of harrowing than this to bring it into a propertilth. Two double strokes are given in the direction of the