THE USE OF STEAM ON THE FAEM. 271 



It thus appears that for forty years effort more or less per- 

 sistent and continuous has been made, and millions of dollars 

 expended to devise a method by which the power of steam 

 can be applied to improve and cheapen the tillage of the soil, 

 and the only practical result is, that two patents have been so 

 far perfected that they can be successfully used to a limited 

 extent as compared with the broad field for which they are 

 demanded. It is conceded that the Fowler engine can be 

 successfully employed to plough, harrow, crush and subsoil ; 

 that its average day's work with ploughs on different kinds of 

 soil is eight acres, at a cost from a dollar to a dollar and a 

 half per acre ; that it performs its work more thoroughly 

 than it can be done by horses, and owing to better cultivation 

 it largely increases the crop, — wheat on such land yielding on 

 the average ten bushels more per acre than that cultivated by 

 the ordinary method ; and on sugar-plantations, where the pre- 

 vious cultivation had been very imperfect, the use of this 

 steam-plough has increased the product of sugar one thousand 

 pounds per acre. But on the other hand it must be said, that 

 the cost of the machine, ploughs and tackle, which Mr. Fow- 

 ler recommends as practically the cheapest of the three sizes 

 or kinds he manufactures, is |4,500 ; its weight being about 

 seven tons, would crush the ordinary bridges on our country 

 and farm roads. It is very unwieldy, and can be profitably 

 employed only on large fields and where the furrows are of 

 considerable length. Though it is a more recent invention, 

 and has not been so thoroughly tested, yet it is agreed by 

 those who have employed it and seen it in operation, that the 

 Thomson -Williamson traction engine is a success; that it 

 will move on any ordinary road at the rate of ten miles j)er 

 hour hauling a load of fifteen tons ; that it is easily handled 

 and guided, turns completely around in a circle eighteen feet 

 in diameter ; that it moves forward and backward, up and 

 down grades of one foot in eight ; that it will convey itself to 

 the field over rough roads with all its ploughing apparatus, 

 water and coal; that it will draw a gang of six ploughs, each 

 cutting a furrow fourteen inches wide, up grades of one in 

 twelve, and turn itself and again set in its ploughs at the end 

 of the field nearly as quick as a horse-team, and plough ac- 

 cording to the tenacity of the soil and its freedom from stones, 



