THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



185 



other kind of motion if suited to our purpose, seeing 

 that the steam-engine employs rectilinear motion, con- 

 tinuous and reciprocating, and, indeed, all conceivable 

 varieties of movement adapted to specitic ends ; and of 

 all practical trials yet made, with the exception, per- 

 haps, of Mr. Romaine's cultivator, far more favourable 

 results have followed from applying steam-power to the 

 haulage of traction implements, than from setting it to 

 drive revolving cultivators. The wonderful rapidity 

 with which steam- thrashing has been accomplished, is 

 owing to the circumstances that there was really nothing 

 new Co do ; the engine had to turn a sheave (to thrash a 

 sheaf) by means of a driving belt, just as it was 

 accustomed to do in thousands of factories, only it had 

 to be made portable. But working over so great an 

 area as the surface of a field is a novel operation for the 

 steam-engine, beyond the mere application of cog- 

 wheels, shafting, belts, and brasses ; and there is diffi- 

 culty enough in finding how to apply the motive-power 

 at all points of the surface in succession without staying 

 to devise, in addition, more perfect tillage implements 

 than we now possess. 



To draw an implement such as the plough, which has 

 been tested, improved, and adapted throughout many 

 centuries, is a simpler and readier problem, than to con- 

 trive a new description of tool for performing a hitherto 

 unknown operation, involving, perhaps, a novel system 

 of cultivation altogether; and as in thrashing, the im- 

 plement will doubtless be speedily improved when once 

 the new power has been applied to it. Again, there is 

 no doubt that intelligent farmers everywhere are prepared 

 to work traction implements by steam, whenever they 

 are convinced that the present ploughing, scarifying, 

 &c., can be done at less cost, all things considered, than 

 by horses. A steam-plough is capable of instant and 

 universal adoption, while a new tilling machine would 

 not only meet with mechanical difficulties, but be along 

 time in achieving practical and pecuniary success against 

 customs and prejudices cherished for generations. It 

 will be wise to imitate those processes which are now 

 found to produce the best effects, even though this may 

 not be making the most advantage of the power that is 

 possible. 



In practice it is found indispensable that the staple of 

 the land should be occasionally inverted — to bury sur- 

 face weeds, stubble, sward, or manure, and bring up 

 root weeds for extraction ; also to fertilize the soil by 

 the chemical and mechanical effects which follow both 

 the exposure of earth that has lain long buried, and the 

 burial of that which has been long treated by rains, 

 dews, winds, frosts, and sunshine. This inverting, in- 

 deed, may be said to constitute the heaviest labour of 

 tillage ; if we can perform this, we can readily master 

 any after-stirring of pulverization. Breaking-up, with- 

 out inversion, is gettiu'jr into favour ; but experience at 

 Lois-Weedon and elsewhere shows that a tenacious sub- 

 soil should be exposed and weathered before being min- 

 gled with the staple. Mere granulation by scratching or 

 rapping, mingling rather than turning over the mass so 

 comminuted, has been proposed as the ideal operation 

 we should aim to accomplish ; but, however useful it 

 may prove in some cases, I cannot regard it as calcu- 

 lated to meet all the necessities of our present practice, 

 in which we find that, after certain crops and for various 

 purposes, tlie soil must be cut or broken into pieces 

 sufficiently lar^e and tenacious to be turned bodily up- 

 side down. The pick or mattock may be a valuable tool 

 in some countries — working with a minutely pulverizing 

 effect, and, at the same time, securing a more or less 

 complete inversion — and the plough itself is in some 

 climates a mere grubbing or ribbing tool ; but with our 

 moist soils and weeping atmosphere, our principal im- 

 plements for performing the fundamental process of 



cultivation have been of necessity the plough that turns 

 a furrow-slice, and the spade that cuts and completely 

 turns over a spit, the plough modified into many shapes, 

 and the spade or fork made equally versatile in its 

 adaptation to deep, shallow, light, strong, or stony 

 land. Of these two implements the plough can be more 

 easily actuated by steam-power than the spade : all 

 hand tools being worked by several different motions in- 

 termittent and irregular, and so requiring complicated 

 mechanism to imitate their action, while traction imple- 

 ments, moving with a continuous rectilinear motion, 

 have simply to be drawn along, and with but little 

 modification needful in their present form ; hence, the 

 solution of the steam-culture problem lying nearest to 

 us consists in 



Steam Ploughing. 



On light land, and where shallow work alone is re- 

 quired, the breaking up and inversion of the soil is done 

 with great efficiency by the plough ; and when we see 

 the neatness with which leas are "tucked down" by our 

 first-class skim-coultered ploughs, precisely that tough- 

 ness being left in the slice which is so desirable on such 

 land, we cannot think that any better implement need 

 be there desired. On heavy land, where tillage makes a 

 larger item in the expenses of management, and a 

 cheaper motive power than that of horses will prove the 

 greatest boon, the plough seems to be used merely be- 

 cause the horses cannot dig. The sledging sole does 

 harm : the slices, not sufficiently subdivided, harden, 

 and make work for future dragging and reducing ; and 

 inversion is imperfectly effected, because a " harrow- 

 edge" is necessary for securing a good " mould." Deep 

 culture is also needed on most strong lands ; yet the 

 farther we dig below the surface, the more is our hori- 

 zontal traction at a disadvantage. A vertically- 

 descending tool appears to be required, rather than a 

 horizontally-drawn one; and, perhaps, rotary diggers 

 will utimately be found as peculiarly adapted for pene- 

 trating and stirring up the subsoil from great depths, 

 as traction implements are for tilling the upper stratum. 

 Such lands will be grateful for a digging or trenching 

 machine driven (not dragged) by a steam engine, when- 

 ever it is practically brought to the field. Meanwhile, 

 the most effective implement for deep work on a large 

 scale, in which manual digging is precluded, is the 

 plough, with the subsoiler or trench- plough following. 

 However, in spite of Lois Weedon husbandry, and the 

 larger experience of the Yester farms, deep tillage is 

 not so much sought afcer at present as a more rapid and 

 economical method of performing ordinary ploughing. 

 Instead of the slow trenching machine (^although neces- 

 sary to the renovation of clay-land farming), everybody is 

 asking for steam machinery thatcanplough or equally well 

 cultivate, at comparatively small cost, a great area of 

 ground in a little time. 



Steam ploughing is not only possible, but is being 

 actually done on a considerable scale ; and, without re- 

 citing the long history of inventions for the purpose, I 

 wish to consider the various plans now before the public 

 —the results, as far as yet ascertained— and then to 

 make suggestions for further progress. 



The first point is, How to apply the power to the 

 implement ; and the next is, The construction of the 

 plough or ploughing machine. 



As the material to be cut and turned over cannot be 

 " fed" to our machine, we must take the machine over 

 every part of the surface to be acted upon. Is the mo- 

 live power, then, to be transported bodily over the 

 whole area, as horses are ? or is it to be transmitted from 

 a distance ? The idea of a locomotive power was the 

 earliest, and certainly the most natural, from observing 

 horse-labour, besides being a corollary from the inven- 

 tion of steam-carriages. And, though it may at first 



