isiting, said:
"_That's_ a machine as will be always kept in the dry and took care
on." He spoke from experience of the arduous work of unloading and the
passing of heavy weights, sometimes from the bed of the waggon to the
summit of the rick; for, as my bailiff often said, "Nobody knows so
well where the shoe pinches as the man who has to wear it."

Steam has not done all that was expected of it as an agricultural
slave. The steam plough is not a success on heavy land where the
ridges are high and irregular in width, and even the steam cultivator
has to be used with caution lest the soil should be carried from the
ridges to the furrows, and the "squitch" (couch) buried to a depth at
which it is difficult to eradicate. The great convenience of steam
cultivation is that full advantage can be taken of a short spell of
hot, dry weather for fallowing operations, and the soil is left so
hollow that it soon bakes and kills the weeds. I fully sympathize with
Tennyson's, _Northern Farmer, Old Style:_

"But summon 'ull come ater meae mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steaem
Huzzin' an' maaezin' the blessed feaelds wi' the Devil's oaen teaem";

for, except on a large farm with immense fields, the ponderous and
ungainly steam, tackle gives one a sensation of intrusion. Such a
field can be found on a farm between Evesham and Alcester; it contains
300 acres. The occupier, speaking of it, mentioned that it was all
wheat that year except one corner. To a question as to the size of the
corner, it transpired that it was 50 acres, and growing peas. For
comparison there is a story of a Devonshire farmer who said he had
been very busy one winter making four fields into one. "Then you've
got a big field," said a friend. "Yes," was the reply; "it's just four
acres."

When the farm labourer was enfranchised in 1885 he became an important
member of the electorate. Candidates and canvassers alike had a much
more strenuous time than ever before, the former were constrained to
hold meetings in every village, and the latter were obliged to visit
nearly every cottage. The late Sir Richard Temple after a
distinguished career in India, became Conservative candidate for our
division. The doctrine of "three acres and a cow," in opposition to
every tenet of rural economy, as well as the division of the land
among the labourers, were at the time paraded by theorists and paid
agitators, as bribes to purchase the votes of the new electors, and as
ens