THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



209 



required for the work. A cultivator is also worked in 

 the same way, doing 12 acres per day. The engines are 

 able to propel themselves from field to field, by driving 

 their travelling-wheels with a pitch-chain, and are 

 steered by the horses above-mentioned ; but could not 

 ascend to the trial field without the help of three 

 or four horses each. 



Mr. John Fowler (of 28, Cornhill, Loudon,) has 

 given up the stationary engine, and now shifts both .the 

 engine and anchorage along the headlands. Instead of 

 temporarily attaching a windlass to the engine, he mounts 

 the engine permanently upon a fraine, with gear-work 

 and drums beneath the boiler, thus making a very heavy 

 machine. He employs either one engine and an 

 anchorage with a single implement for one-way plough- 

 ing, or two engines with two implements for ploughing 

 in lands or stetches. Three engines were exhibited, 

 somewhat diftering in construction. The 10-horse 

 engine, with double cylinder, working at 60 or 701bs. 

 pressure, weighs altogether about eight tons. It is 

 raounled upon a timber frame on four wheels, the 

 hind-ones of about 5^ ft. diameter, with broad tires; 

 the front- wheels turning on a transom for steerage, and 

 a vertical screw being used to adjust the level of the 

 boiler. The crank-shaft gives motion by mitre-wheels 

 (with reversing clutch) to a vertical shaft supported by 

 a bracket on one side the boiler; and a pinion at the 

 lower end, gearing with a spur-wheel, turns another 

 intermediate spur-wheel situated between the two 

 drums which arc on upright axles underneath the boiler, 

 the last spur-wheel being put in or out of gear with 

 either drum, by being shifted on a moveable arm. The 

 drums are carried by a light framing which comes down 

 within 10 inches of the ground. For travelling back- 

 wards or forwards along the headland or on common 

 roads at the pace of two miles per hour, there is 

 a horizontal shaft geared by bevel- wheels at one end to 

 the main vertical shaft before-mentioned, and having a 

 pinion at the other end taking into the teeth of a cog- 

 wheel on one of the carriage-wheels. For working 

 steep gradients, the engine coils up a rope anchored 

 a-head. The 12-horse engine is " self-contained," the 

 machinery being affixed lothe boiler without a framing; 

 the weight about 8i tons. There is only one in- 

 termediate spur-weeel between the main vertical shaft 

 and the drums. There is separate reducing-gear from 

 a pinion on the crank-shaft, for driving the carriage- 

 wheel axle ; and by means of an arm on the axle 

 and blocks or cogs on the wheels, both carriage wheels 

 are actuated, thus obtaining a firmer hold on the ground 

 than when only one side is driven. For creeping 

 slowly along a headland, there are ratchets winding 

 up a rope. The 8-horse engine has a single cylinder, 

 and drums underneath; but the carriage-wheel is 

 driven by a crown-wheel and a cage-pinion on the 

 main vertical shaft. 



The rope used is about fths of an inch thick, made of 

 steel wire; and is held off the ground by friction- 

 rollers mounted upon barrows, or by new self-shifting 

 rope-carriers, each consisting of a wheel with a long 

 hollow axle through which the rope runs. The anchorage 

 is a low truck with sharp-edged wheels that cut into 

 the soil, and the sheave round which the rope passes 

 gives motion (by ratchets, wheels and a screw) to 

 a barrel winding up a rope anchored a-head, and so 

 propels itself very slowly along the headland. The 

 implement is Mr. Fowler's well-known and most 

 efiicient frame of ploughs in two sets, balanced upon a 

 pair of wheels, readily steered by regulating the lock of 

 the axletree, adjusted to different depths by screws, 

 and now made so that the ploughs can be set to 

 different widths of furrow. The work we saw was very 

 well done, considering the objectionable nature of the 



land ; the cost is estimated at considerably under 

 that of horse-labour. Four men and a boy are engaged, 

 and a horse and man to fetch water ; but by adopting 

 the " endless railway," a day's supply of water might 

 be drawn to the field with the implement and all 

 the tackle, much more easily than at present. The 

 price" of the 12-horse engine and apparatus is ^825 ; of 

 two 12-horse engines and two implements (without 

 anchor), ^1,500 ; of the 7-horse engine and apparatus 

 for a smaller plough, <£~'600, or with two engines and 

 implements, .£1,075; and the price of the 10-horse 

 engine only (with self-contained windlass) is £360. 



We appear at last to have obtained steam-ploughing 

 machinery perfectly independent of horses. Ttiis is 

 the great fact of the Salisbury Meeting ; and we must 

 looii for the few improvements which seem wanted, in 

 combining the best features of different schemes, and 

 adapting say common portable engines for the farmers, 

 and the more powerful and ponderous machinery for 

 men who will let out on hire. 



REAPING AND MOWING MACHINES. 



We shall be very brief here, having already described 

 the trials, and pubhshed the report of the judges ; our 

 notices being descriptive of the machinery rather than 

 of the merits, which have already appeared. Mazier's 

 French reaper did not meet with much approval ; though 

 the method of turning over the cutter-bar on an arm, 

 so as to be on either the right or left side of the 

 machine, is ingenious and useful, when the " lay " of the 

 crop requires it to be cut all one way. 



Lord Kinnaird's is M'Cormick's with an endless- 

 web side-delivery ; price £'2\ 10s. It has been ex- 

 tensively used, and found to work exceedingly well. 



Dray and Co.'s " Hussey," price £2Q, has the 

 advantage of being the smallest, compactest, and lightest 

 machine hitherto employed in this country, the weight 

 being only 9 cwt. The acute skeleton knives are very 

 excellent ; the travelling-wheels allow the height of the 

 cutters to be easily regulated : there is no reel to collect 

 the corn in front ; but the tipping platform facilitates the 

 delivery of the cut corn in bundles, so that no after- 

 gathering and unavoidable scattering are required, and 

 it will cross ridge and furrow without difficulty. How- 

 ever, notwithstanding its proved merits and extensive 

 employment, we approve the sanction of the judges 

 awarded to the principle of an automatic delivery 

 apparatus, in preference to this, which is laborious 

 to the man who wields the rake. What mechanism 

 can do without complication ought not to devolve upon 

 the labourer's strength. The Union reaper, invented 

 by Mr. Palmer of Stockton, has a curved platform, so 

 as to deliver the corn out of the next track of the 

 horses, and thus obviate the necessity for immediate 

 removal of the sheaves. But in this machine we 

 have not even the tipping platform, and only a partial 

 attempt at delivery by rollers to ease the labour of the 

 rake-man. 



Crosskill's reaper is propelled from behind, as Bell's 

 original one was ; so that it can charge into a crop 

 in any direction, and there is no " side- draught " 

 as in other machines. Serrated cutters are employed, 

 and the cut corn is laid by the reel upon a slanting 

 platform, off which it is swept in a continuous swathe 

 by endless bands having cogs upon them. These belts 

 will pass either way, delivering on whichever side 

 is most convenient, and so enabling the reaper to 

 traverse up and down instead of round the field. The 

 width of the cut is 6 ft. 9 in. — too much, we think, for 

 two horses ; the price, ,£42. 



Messrs. Burgess aad Key's reaper, with M'Cormick's 

 cutters and their own scrcw-roller platform, and having 

 a 5 feet 6 inch cut, is of mucli lighter draught thaa any 



