STEAM PLOUGHING IN FRANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1419, 1 February 1879, Page 14

STEAM PLOUGHING IN FRANCE.

Mr Walter M. Noakes sends us the following Summary from a work on the "Corn and Cattle Producing Districts of France," by Geo. Gibson Ricbardeon :—: — The value of ploughing done by steam is acknowledged ; horses are getting as scarce and as dear in Franco as in England. Bullocks, much U3ed in France, are a resource that the English farmer has not got, but they also are getting too dear j being now kept in high condition, their value approaches too near that for the hutcher, whsn they have to be purchased by those who want them for work; they are still largely used, however, but where the farms are large eDough steam is superseding them, and the use of steam ploughs has received a great impetus from the experience of Messrs Jetard, at Gonesae, after the German occupation. On the 6fch September, 1870, these gentlemen were compelled to take all their live stock into Paris ; the whole of their crops and everything in the barns and about the place were burnt. After the siege they took possession early in April, 1871, of a portion of the farm buildings, and they found themselves with 1200 acres of untiiled and unsown land, seven horses only out of 167 they had taken into Paris, not a head of any other kind of stock, and no fodder, and in a country where the cattle plague was raging. They immediately got over steam ploughs from Fowler; by the 18fch of May they were at work. In one month from that time 600 acres were sown with sugarbeet, in good condition j the Beason was saved, and the cost of the steam machinery was repaid by this alone. In August and September the steam plough was again at work preparing the land which had lain under an enforced fallow, and relieving Messrs Jetard from the necessity of buyixg more than half the usual number of working oxen. The spring work of the following year was performed without difficulty, and in ftL»y, 1872, 540 aereß were sown with beet. The autumn of that year gave another opportunity for Phowiug the advantage of steam : the land was soaked with water, the baet was oa the ground, the sugar manufactory ready for it, but no animal power could move the roots in sufficient quantity to be in time for the season, which only lasts three months. Eighteen oxen could not drag two tons of roots out of the deep mire. Fowler's steam wag again called upon and the loaded waggons were drawn on to the hard road.