ox IMPLEMENTS SELECTED FOR TKIAL. 325 



was subjected to a series of trials, beginning on Tuesday the 

 14th, and terminating on the 18th Xoveniber, on the farm of 

 Liberton Tower Mains, the use of the ground and all facilities for 

 making the trials having been kindly afforded by Mr Bryden 

 Monteith, one of the directors of the Society. Thereafter, further 

 opportunities occurred for testing the " System" on the farms of 

 Mr Black at Liberton Mains, and Mr Gray at Southfield, both 

 of these gentlemen having kindly given the Society the means of 

 prosecuting their experimental inquiries. 



Although the Fisken Tackle is pretty generally known, it may 

 be convenient for those who have not had an opportunity of 

 seeing it at work to describe, briefly, its action by reference to 

 the accompanying wood-cut (fig. 1). The engine supplying 

 the power is placed at A, which may be any convenient spot 

 at the edge of a field. An endless hempen driving rope, 

 measuring f inch diameter, shown by dotted lines, passes round 

 the grooved fly-wheel of the engine, and thence round the ten- 

 sion pulley B anchored at the point C, the use of which is to 

 adjust the tightness of the rope. On leaving the tension pulley 

 B, the rope is carried round the corner anchor, pulleys I), and 

 intermediate porter pulleys E, and finally, after encircling the 

 field to be ploughed, returns to the fly-wheel of the engine. 

 The outline of the field to be ploughed need not necessarily be 

 rectangular, as the rope can, by means of the corner pulleys 

 and porters, be carried round an angle considerably larger 

 or smaller than a ri"ht an^ile without notablv aft'ectincr its 

 Working. F and G are two windlasses, between which the 

 plough traverses, and H is the plough itself. The hempen 

 driving-rope passes round a horizontal wheel, keyed to the upper 

 end of the upright shafts of the windlasses F and G. On the 

 lower end of these shafts is fixed horizontal toothed crearinfr, so 

 arranged that it can be readily thrown out of gear, so that the 

 endless rope may be driven without communicating its motion 

 to the lower barrel of the windlass, round which is coiled the 

 strong wire ro])e I which drags the plough. The engine, on 

 being started, propels the endless hempen rope at a velocity 

 which, during the experiments, varied from 20 to 25 miles an 

 liour. Suppose the plough is required to commence its work at 

 the windlass G, the windlass F is thrown into gear and immedi- 

 ately coils up on its barrel the wire rope attached to the plough 

 (wliich is at the same time given off by the windlass G) at the 

 easy rate of about two miles \)vi' hour, dragging the plough across 

 the field from G to F. The windlass is thrown out of gear when- 

 ever the i)lougli reaches F. The ])lough is reset for another 

 furrow, — an operation which in ordinary working was found to 

 occupy about half a minute, — tlie two windlasses are moved for- 

 ward a few fi'ct by nuichinery worked by the endless rope 



