MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 45 



clevis, movable 4 or 5 inches up or down, or upon either side, and the 

 whole only weighing 84 pounds, and yet strong enough for two yoke 

 of oxen, but not of too luvivy a draft for one yoke, when run up to 

 the beam in the ground, producing such an effect as to shake the plants 

 several feet upon each side, and you will have some idea of a new 

 sub-soil plow, now publicly exhibited for the first time. 



The great desideratum of the day is to contrive a machine that shall 

 have the efficiency of the spade and the capability of the plow. Many 

 attempts have been made, but, until recently, without anything like 

 successful results. The Marquis of Tweeddale, Scotland, recently 

 adapted a plough, or rather frame of ploughs, for carrying out a sys- 

 tem of deep ploughing. In this case two engines are employed, one 

 at either end of the field, the plough-frame travelling by means of 

 traction-chains between them, and doing the work some twelve to fif- 

 teen inches deep, in a most efficient manner. There appears to be a 

 question as to whether, all things considered, there is much gained by 

 the application of steam thus limited to the traction merely of the im- 

 plement. In most cases where steam has successfully supplanted labor, 

 it has demanded that the old processes be laid aside, and new ones, 

 suited to the advanced requirements, be adopted. The plough, itself 

 universally acknowledged to be a defective implement, has no claims 

 to exception to this rule, and certainly the small amount of success 

 attending the steam traction plows would be evidence in favor of it. 

 An attempt has been made by Usher, of Edinburgh, to construct a 

 machine that shall, by one operation, satisfy all the requirements of 

 cultivation. This has been tried in the field with favorable results, 

 and it certainly possesses more of the elements of success than any other 

 that has hitherto been brought out. The old plow is thrown aside, 

 and only the share and mold-board been made use of; some three to 

 six rows of them are arranged round a large cylinder which is attached 

 to a locomotive engine. When at work in the field the power is 

 applied to this cylinder, which, by its revolution, drives the plows (or 

 other instruments, as the case may be) into the soil, and thus acts as 

 the propelling agent to the whole machine. The soil is left in a broken 

 condition, as by the fork or spade, and arrangements exist by which 

 the three operations of moving the soil, sowing, and covering in the 

 seed are done at the same time. It travels at the rate of three miles 

 an hour, equal to nine acres a day, or, allowing for turning, stoppages, 

 &c., say seven acres, which it has done in its various trials, for an 

 expenditure of seventeen and sixpence, or two and sixpence per acre. 

 It travels well on common roads, ascending acclivities of one in ten, and 

 turning round in a circle of sixteen feet diameter, and is adapted for any 

 other purpose to which steam power is applied. Let us see what would 

 be the result of the substitution of the steam plough for our present sys- 

 tems of ploughing. In England, taking Caird's estimate, there are 

 14,000,000 acres in tillage ; these are ploughed certainly once every 

 year. The cost of the operation averages at least ten shillings per 

 acre thus giving a total of 7,000, 0001. per annum. This first machine 

 of Usher does the work better than by the plow for two and sixpence 



