AGRICULTURAL MECHANICS AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



79 



Should a machine be produced of sufficient versatile powers to execute both shallow work 

 like a plow and deep work like a spade, such a doubly-clever contrivance will of course merit 

 the palm. 



Before awarding the prize, and so pronouncing some invention to be an "economical sub- 

 stitute" for the implements with which to break up and invert whole ground, not merely for 

 the grubbers and harrows with which we stir and pulverize soil already broken, let the judges 

 well weigh this point of "economy." Besides the working expenses, they must calculate the 

 wear and tear and the interest of the first outlay in purchasing the machine ; and on the 

 other side of the account they must be prepared with similar estimations of the charges for 

 food, attendance, depreciations, &c. attaching to horses and common implements. On the 

 credit side they will have to compare the excellence or inferiority of the respective operations, 

 and particularly they should fix a money value upon the time saved in the performance of the 

 work, inasmuch as there is a great advantage in having a breadth of land prepared for sow- 

 ing in less time than usual, though the acreage expense may be the same; and any means 

 (without incurring any neutralizing disadvantage) which gives the husbandman greater com- 

 mand over his soil, and more independence of the weather, is certainly to be valued as a pecu- 

 niary gain. 



Steam Machinery for Cultivating- Land. 



The annexed engraving represents an English invention, patented by Mr. John Bethel, of 

 London, for adapting steam machinery for the cultivation or digging of land for agricultural 

 purposes. 



In this arrangement, as will be seen in 

 the engraving, the digger is placed behind 

 the apparatus, which is mounted on four 

 wheels, and is intended to be drawn forward 

 by horses : a a represents the boiler and 

 engine supplying the power ; b b the lever 

 frames, at the outer end of which the dig- 

 ger c c is located. Motion is communicated 

 from the crank-shaft d, on which is a band- 

 wheel d, from whence a band passes around 

 another band-wheel / on the axle of the 

 lever arms b b. Motion is by means of this 

 band communicated from the band-wheel/, atone end of the lever arms b, to a similar band- 

 wheel/, on the axle of the digger- wheel c, at the opposite end. The depth to which the prongs 

 of the digger enter the ground is regulated by raising or lowering the screw-shaft r by means 

 of a winch at its upper end. 



Fisker's Steam Plow. 



The London Agricultural Gazette furnishes the following description of the construction and 

 operation of a new steam-plow, recently invented by Messrs. Fisker, of Stamfordsham, Eng- 

 land, and exhibited at the agricultural fair at Carlisle, June, 1855: — 



"The whole apparatus is novel, and, we may say, uncommonly promising. Instead of a 

 heavy wire rope to drag the plow frame by main force, a light endless hemp rope, only three- 

 eighths of an inch thick, communicates power to the plow carriage, which we may call locomo- 

 tive, as it propels itself in the following manner : a grooved wheel set in motion by proper 

 spur-wheels from the rigger actuated by the hemp rope, winds, as it were, along a strong wire 

 rope laid upon the ground ; and the frame, being thus carried slowly forward, drags plows or 

 other implements after it. The hemp cord does not touch the ground, but is held up at every 

 forty yards' distance by a 'horse,' or small friction pulley-frame, about three and a half feet 

 high. This cord travels at the rate of twenty miles per hour; but the speed being reduced 

 by the wheel-work upon the plow carriage, the latter travels only two miles per hour. When 



