a hundred yards of the dairy.

The hay or straw elevator is one of the greatest helps, saving much
heavy overhand labour in rick-building. An old labourer, pointing to
one, with great appreciation, on a farm I was visiting, 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 meä mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steäm
Huzzin' an' maäzin' the blessed feälds wi' the Devil's oän teäm";

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