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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



work, and the great hcncC^t of turning over the furrow- 

 tltces with a rapid motion, and with no damaging pres- 

 sure either by the plough-soles or by horses' hoofs, were 

 ])oinls equally well demonstrated on that as on many 

 other occasions. 



The adoption of a shifting engine and windlass, I view 

 as one of the best steps taken for cheapening the opera- 

 tion of steam-ploughing, a step that economizes power, 

 saves time, curtails labour, diminishes wear and tear, and 

 lessens the first cost of machinery and tackle. For 

 working scarifiers and other implements taking a great 

 breadth at once, perhaps it would be well to employ 

 Mr. Smith's removable anchors, instead of the self, 

 shifting one. 



Mr. Fowler's latest advance has been to triumph over 

 one of the defects hitherto found in the coiling of the 

 ropes upon the drums. He has dispensed with the man 

 for regulating the winding on, and escaped the wear 

 caused by the grinding and sawing action of the coils of 

 rope upon each other, by giving up winding altogether, 

 and leading the rope round grooves in the drums. He 

 is thus enabled also to keep every portion of the rope 

 sufficiently tight to be hi Id off the ground by the friction- 

 roller barrows, so that the wear is amazingly reduced. 

 The total length of rope is also lessened by one- third, 

 and is now less than half that required for a field of 

 given size by the rectangular method. Only 800 yards 

 of rope are required for ploughing 400 yards' length of 

 furrow, and the price of the entire apparatus for a seven- 

 horse engine is £"280. The hands required are only two 

 men and three boys, beside the water-carters. I should 

 also add here, that scarifier tines have been adapted to 

 the plough frame, so that either ploughing or grubbing 

 can be effected by the same implement ; and, of course, 

 any traction implement whatever, as, for instance, Mr. 

 Smith's subsoilers or scarifiers, may be worked by the 

 same tackle. 



There are many distiicts in which the fields are gene- 

 rally too precipitous for the easy passage of an ordinary 

 engine from side to side, much less to admit of a locomo- 

 tive traction engine climbing over all parts of the surface. 

 In such cases we must fall back upon the stationary en- 

 gine; and we may adopt the direct hauling from a fixed 

 capstan, ropes laid out in a rectangular form, and an- 

 chorages self-shifting like Mr. Fowler's, or removed by 

 hand in Mr. Smith's manner, or we may save the wear 

 of wire-rope, and secure a light apparatus, by employing 

 the travelling windlass of the Messrs. Fisken. In this 

 arrangement the wire-rope is fixed, being fastened to 

 self-shifting anchorages at the ends of the work, and the 

 windlass, with implements attached, winds itself along 

 the rope from end to end, motion being communicated 

 from the engine in one corner of the field to the rigger, 

 gear work, and coiling drums on the windlass, by an end- 

 less hemp cord mounted upon frames with friction rollers, 

 while, in order that this cord may be very light, it is 

 driven at a high velocity. There are many advanta- 

 geous points in this invention— the complete control 

 which one man has over the windlass and implements, 

 so as to stop or return at pleasure without signalling of 

 cny kind, and the facility with which the tackle can be 

 removed from place to place, being among the number ; 

 and it is to be much regretted that we no longer find it 

 in a practical form before the public. 



The hemp rope (manufactured so as to be impervious 

 to wet) is so convenient for transmitting power, and I 

 believe not liable to the rapid wearing out that we might 

 suppose, that 1 will now offer a suggestion for its appli- 

 cation in steep districts, where a shifting engine may be 

 inadmissible ; and here I would observe, that this paper 

 is mtended to be suggestive of mechanical improvements 

 rather than a narrative of the achievements and perform- 

 ances of particular inventions. I believe that ideas are 



wanted, and bog to submit for your consideration a num- 

 ber of proposals with the diffidence becoming one who 

 propounds methods deduced from theoretical considera- 

 tions, from observations of the schemes of others tried on 

 a great scale, and from mere working model and garden 

 experiments of his own. 



Suppose a windlass mounted on wheels not to travel 

 up and down the field, but simply to shift itself along 

 the headland as required, and hauling an implement by 

 wire-ropes and an anchorage, as in Mr. Fowler's plan. 

 Let there be cutting discs (like those in Mr. Fowler's 

 anchorage), to prevent the windlass from slipping side- 

 ways, and let an endless hemp-rope transmit motion to 

 a large grooved rigger on the windlass from a similar one 

 on the engine at one corner of the field. I think a wind- 

 lass with drums on a horizontal axis would be most com- 

 pact and simple, and in order to permit of ploughing at 

 various angles to the direction of the headland, the tra- 

 velling wheels of the windlass frame might be capable 

 of being more or less locked, so that it could advance as 

 it were iu an angular or diagonal direction, while the 

 axps of the winding drums still remained at right angles 

 to the line of ploughing. Mr. Fowler's grooved barrels 

 would, however, be still better. 



In re-modelling and modernizing this essay, which 

 was written a year ago, I am gratified to find that one 

 of my principal suggestions has now been superseded 

 by Mr. Fowler's simple method of temporarily uniting 

 portable windlasses with an ordinary engine. I will 

 merely state briefly that my proposal was to connect 

 such a shifting and independent windlass as that just 

 described with a portable engine, by means of a beam 

 or bar fastened to the windlass- frame at one end, and to 

 the axle-trees of the engine at the other, provision being 

 made for slightly locking the front wheels of the engine 

 when required for steering. This beam was to be in 

 two parts, with a right and left hand screw for altering 

 its length, so as to regulate the distance of the engine 

 from the windlass, and maintain the proper tension of 

 the driving belt or rope. And the engine might be 

 either shod with the " endless rails," or, more clumsily, 

 travel upon a couple of short planks, laid down before 

 and taken up behind it by hand labour, as in Lord 

 Willoughby d'Eresby's plan. 



I will now ask whether we may not relieve the an- 

 chorage of most of the present strain, and so have it of 

 the lightest and simplest form, employ much less heavy 

 rope, avoid the delays and hazards of " signalling," and 

 save time at the ends by making the whole operation 

 more automatic than at present. Suppose we give up 

 the to-and-fro work with a single implement, and use 

 two implements, ploughing always one way, namely, up 

 to the windlass, one implement going backward empty 

 while the other is in work. That part of the rope pass- 

 ing round the anchored pulley having only the draught 

 of an implement out of work, and one length of slack 

 rope to haul, may be very light indeed, and the anchor- 

 age correspondingly light and portable. No time would 

 be lost in directing the implement into a fresh course, 

 as each implement is steered as it travels backward pre- 

 cisely into the position from which it has to start. Di- 

 rectly one implement arrives at the windlass the other 

 is ready to commence its journey, and perhaps the im- 

 plement might itself " reverse" the winding drums by 

 coming in contact with a lever connected with the 

 clutches for this purpose, so that the change of motion 

 might be almost instantaneous, and the ploughing per- 

 petual and continuous. When it is considered that we 

 now lose an hour or an hour and a-half in a day in 

 changing, &c., at the ends of the work, the advantage 

 of this plan is obvious. It is most applicable to plough- 

 ing in " lands" or " sietches," the track of one imple- 

 ment always the breadth of one bout from that of the 



