U2 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



between the rails— to be near the headland, and on the 

 near set of rails ; the engines are set in operation ; 

 the wheels of the side-frames revolve, and the frame 

 progresses up the field, at a rate determined on, until it 

 reaches the opposite headland. The laud between the 

 rails over which the frame has traversed will thus be 

 ploughed. The shifting of the frame or platform, with 

 its suspended ploughs, to the next set of rails, is now to 

 be performed. On the headland railway a low traversing 

 frame — similar to that employed in railways for shifting 

 carriages from one line to another — runs at such a level 

 that the platform can be run off to a set of rails placed 

 on ir. The traversing-frame is then moved along the 

 headland-railway to a point opposite the next set of 

 rails on which the platform, with its ploughs, is required 

 to run. By a very simple arrangement, the set of 

 ploughs which were first in use are taken out of contact 

 with the soil, and another set, working the contrary 

 way, placed in order. The frame is now moved along 

 the rails, and the ground between them ploughed as 

 before. These operations are gone through till the 

 spaces of ground between the whole sets of rails are all 

 ploughed. One point in the arrangement of operations 

 here performed will obviously strike the reader at this 

 stage of our incpiiry, namely, (rom the parallelism of 

 the rails, and the ease with which, mechanically speak- 

 ing, exactly similar adjustments of succeeding and diverse 

 implements can be made to the platform, a degree of 

 precision hitherto unattainable in actual culture can be 

 insured. Thus, by the apparatus, the seed can be sown 

 by means of the ordinary drill mechanism, and the 

 spaces between the rising plants hoed by hoes or blades 

 capable of most accurate adjustment to the frame. On this 

 point the inventor states : " I have drilled by the steam- 

 machinery rows of plants, and, when they have come 

 up, I have hoed them repeatedly by the same steam- 

 machine with the greatest perfection, and at all stages 

 of their growth. In fact," he continues, " I have 

 placed'' (note that he states that he has done it, not that 

 he thinlis he can do it — a distinction worthy of attention 

 here) ' the blades of the hoes on each side of the rows, so 

 near them as to cut within half an inch distance from the 

 stalks without doing any injury to a single plant as the 

 machine hoed them. I may mention," he goes on to 

 say — and what he is about to say is worthy of saying, 

 and of course of hearing — " that I have frequently 

 placed upright in the ground two small sticks (two 

 pencils) at a distance from each other of one inch, and, 

 having fixed a small stirrer, or tine, propelled it at full 

 speed of engine, cutting the ground between the sticks 

 without on any one occasion disturbing either of them. 

 So much for the facts proving the precision of the 

 operation of the arrangements adopted by the inventor. 



Another feature of the apparatus, which will be ob- 

 vious to the reader, is that all poaching or padding of 

 the soil — an evil inherent in all the methods of culture 

 at present in ordinary use— is avoided ; in fact, nothing 

 comes in contact with the soil under culture but the 

 implements and machines which are to effect that cul- 

 ture. But more of this important point hereafter. 



Having now given a general notion of the peculiarities 

 of the " Guideway Steam Agriculture," we proceed to 

 enter more fully into details. In doing so, we shall 

 divide our remarks into four classes : 1, Construction; 

 2, Practice; 3, Cost; and 4, Results cultural. 



1. Construction. Under this head, the point which 

 first claims our attention is the "permanent way." 

 This may be constructed in one of two ways — first, by 

 driving piles into the ground in the line of intended rails, 

 these supporting a continuous top-rail, or beam, 

 on which the rails are laid; or second— which is 

 the method adopted in practice— by digging a trench on 

 the line of rails, and forming a foundation, or ballast, 

 ftfter the manner of ordinary railways, and laying the 



rails on this. The rail used is not flat on its upper sur- 

 face, like the ordinary rail of our railways, but angular 

 in section ; this gives a sufficiently strong yet cheaper 

 rail than the ordinary one. The section being angular, the 

 tires of the wheels of the moveable side-frames supporting 

 the main platform have angular grooves, into which fits 

 the apex of the angular rail. The rail does not rest on 

 wooden sleepers laid on the ballast, but upon angular 

 hollow bricks which act as the sleepers. The space taken 

 up by the rails and the ballast is, obviously, so much taken 

 off from the cultivable soil of the farm. This loss, how- 

 ever, is comparatively insignificant in amount, being cal- 

 culated at 2s. per acre only. But, as the distance between 

 each pair of rails is 30 feet — easily incressable to 50 — the 

 space of land lost by the rails and their ballast is much 

 less than that in ordinary cases with the open furrows 

 between the stetches. Mr. Halkett calculates that 

 with a gauge of fifty feet, and a width of foundation for 

 the rail of 2| feet, l-20th of the land is taken up 

 by the rails. One set of driving-wheels, attached 

 to one of the side-frames, have a lateral play or 

 adjustment given to them on their axles ; this arrange- 

 ment meeting any deviation from the exact parallelism of 

 the rails, or alteration of.'the width of the gauge, which 

 may happen through various causes. This play or tra- 

 verse of the one set of wheels is also useful in adjusting 

 the implements which, in operation, succeed one another. 

 Thus the drill-spouts or seed-depositors being made to 

 travel at a regulated distance from the rails, the succeeding 

 implements, the hoes, can be adjusted so as to travel in 

 lines exactly parallel with the lines of motion of the 

 drills, and, consequently, between the rows of growing 

 crops. As no transverse ties or sleepers can be used, as 

 in ordinary railways, to preserve the width of " gauge," 

 this has been considered by some as militating against 

 the utility ot' the system ; it being argued that one of 

 the practical difficulties in 'he maintenance of the per- 

 manent way of railways is keeping intact the width of 

 gauge. But it should be remembered, on the other 

 hand, that there is a vast difference between the speed of 

 the railway locomotive and that of the travelling platform 

 of Mr. Halkett, that of the former being up to as high a 

 velocity as 50 and 60 miles per hour, while that of the 

 latter is only about 2| miles per hour. The succession 

 of impacts given to the rail by the passage of a train at a 

 high speed over them tends rapidly to destroy the in- 

 tegrity of the railway. In Mr. Halkett's system no 

 inconvenience has arisen in practice from the want of 

 any method to preserve the gauge of the rails. In view 

 of the cultivation of tlie soil being carried on quite up 

 to the line of ballast which supports the rails, it has 

 been objected that the ballast will have a tendency to 

 gire way literally, from want of solid earth on each side 

 to support it. In answer to this, Mr. Halkett states 

 that he does not cultivate close up to the rails to an equal 

 depth with the rest of the space, but gradually slopes 

 the cultivated part outwards from each side ; thus 

 leaving a considerable width of solid ground against the 

 lower part of the ballast. Moreover, the slow rate of 

 speed at which the platform travels is not found, in 

 practice, to injure the ballasting. Even in cases where 

 the soil may be ploughed quite up to the line of ballast, 

 and to the ordinary depth, we do not anticipate that its 

 lateral displacement will amount to much : besides, 

 this lateral displacement can be easily obviated by simple 

 contrivances. Again, it is to be remembered that the 

 pressure of the whole apparatus is distributed over a 

 large amount of surface by the use of numerous wheels- 

 eight in number — on which each side-framing supporting 

 the main platform rests ; just as we find that a beam, 

 which has the weight which it has to support distributed 

 over the whole of its surface, can sustain a load double 

 in amount of a beam which has its load placed on, or 

 hanging from, the centre. 



