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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



ordinary cultivation, and was exhibited at the Lincoln 

 Meeting in 1854. 



The next improvement consisted of a more power- 

 ful anchorag-e, in which two boards were hinged to- 

 gether, back to back, and placed in a hole feet wide 

 and 3 feet deep ; the chain from the pulley tending to 

 force the pair of boards open in the hole (like a pair of 

 " tweezers" or "sugar-nippers" opening; outwards); 

 and these pressing against both sides, gave a very firm 

 holdfast capiilile of resisting a pull of ten tons. This 

 arrangement of tackle worked very well at first; but 

 wire rope of the great thickness necessary to bear the 

 greatly increased strain could only be used advan- 

 tageously over pulleys larger than could be moved in 

 the field — sheaves of a small diameter bending the rope 

 so much that it would not last any great lengtli of time. 

 Accordingly, the system of leading the rope round 

 pulleys was altogether relinquished; and an oiifjine and 

 windlass combined was made to move itself along the 

 headland so as to come to the head of each drain in 

 turn, and, there standing, have a direct pull on the 

 plough without passing round any pulley. A winding- 

 drum was jilaced on a vertical axis underneath the 

 boiler of an ordinary portable engine, and driven from 

 the crank-shaft by an intermediate shaft with bevil 

 gearing. When the rope was wound up, and the plough 

 arrived at the engine, it was drawn back again to tlie 

 bottom of the field by a horse, while the engine shifted 

 itself onward ready for making another drain — this 

 movement being effected by a small drum and a rope 

 anchored on the headland. This plan is still in use ; 

 and a drain half-a-mile in length has often been put in 

 by it from one fixture of the machine. 



Everybody ou^'ht to be familiar with the mechanics 

 of steam ploughing. Accordingly, we have given 

 an outline of Mr. Fowler's progi-ess with the drain- 

 plopgh, as the foundation of our present success in 

 windlass and wire-rope cultivation. The first form 

 was that of a travelling windlass, actuated by horses 

 walkhis round and round, while the machine slowly 

 advanced along the fixed rope, dragging the imple- 

 ment behind ; and then came a statiojiary capstan, 

 worked by horses, with the rope led round a pulley 

 anchored at tl:e head of the drain. Fteam-power being 

 applied, it went through the same mode of operation : 

 the engine being first made to travel in front of the 

 plough, by winding up a fixed rope : then it was sta- 

 tioned in one corner of the field, and hauled the plough 

 up the field and back again by two ropes led round a 

 pulley at each end of the drain. And, lastly, going a 

 step further than the horse-windlass had done, the pul- 

 leys were abandoned ; the engine, with a coiling drum 

 underneath, was made to stand at the head of the drain, 

 pull ijp the plough, then move itself onward to the i^ext 

 drain, while the implement was drawn back again by a 

 horse. 



Very similar have been the successive stages of ad- 

 vance made by Mr. Fowler's steam-plough. And as 

 we are noticing, on the present occasion, Mr. Fowler's 

 machinery only, we shall bo doing no injustice by 

 passing over Mr. Hannam's trials in 1844, Lord Wil- 



loughbj's or the Marquis of Tweeddale's steam-plough, 

 or Mr. Williams's experiments in 1852, and Mr. 

 Smith's working of his cultivator with the windlass, 

 kc, supplied to him by Mr. Fowler in 1855. This 

 tackle consisted of an engine, and a windlass on a se- 

 parate fi'amc, in which two drums on a horizontal axis 

 were driven by a belt from the engine fly-wheel ; but 

 otherwise differing only in strength from the windlass 

 adopted in 1853 and 1854 (or the draining-plough. 

 These were stationed at one corner of the plot to be 

 cultivated ; and the rope, laid out in a triangular form, 

 passed round three anchored pulleys, two of which were 

 moveable, and shifted, as the work pi-oceeded, into 

 holes dug for the anchors to hold by. The first trial 

 was with a scarifier, which it worked well, turning it 

 round at the headlands with ease; this being accom- 

 plished by attaching both ropes to the front of the im- 

 plement, so that it turned round of itself when the 

 ropes began to reverse their pull. The next step was 

 to consider the best mode of applying the newly- found 

 power ; and the much-despised plough, in its different 

 modifications, seemed the most likely instrument for 

 accomplishing this end. In using the ordinary jdough, 

 if turned in the same furrow, that one furrow is turned 

 over one way, and the next the other way, leaving an 

 open "drill" or "ridge;" and to make a number of 

 furrows lie the same way, it is necessary to take 

 the plough some distance along the headland before 

 turning to go back again ; but this plan is im- 

 pr£).cticable with steam-power, there being no moans 

 by which the implement can be moved along the head- 

 land, except by very cumberous and delaying arrange- 

 ments, or extraneous labour. 'The turnwrest plough, 

 to be sure, laid all its slices in one direction ; but to 

 employ several such implements at once, in their com- 

 mon form, was out of the question. Mr. Fowler there- 

 fore had recourse, as others had done before him, to 

 two distinct sets of ploughs, one "right-handed" and the 

 other " left-handed ;" and, by a simpler device than any 

 other inventor had then or has yet arrived at, he fixed 

 the two sets of shares and mouldboards rigidly at oppo- 

 site ends of a long frame, and balanced this frame upon 

 a pair of large carriage-wheels. By this arrangement, 

 when one set is in work, the other set is in the air ; and 

 these are simply brought down, and the others simulta- 

 neously raised, for going in the opposite direction ; and 

 while there is weight enough to keep the ploughs in 

 work (with the horizontal and low pull of the rope, in- 

 stead of the angular uplifting draught of horses) there 

 is not enough to cause that sledging pressure which in 

 common ploughs augments the draught and itijures the 

 subsoil. The steerage of the implement was awkwardly 

 effected by a man walking in front with a long pole or 

 handle to guide it by. A new form of windlass was 

 found necessary ; for previous experience in draining 

 had proved that the crookedness of the fields, and the 

 varying angles at which it was required to plough, in 

 order to render the machine generally available, ren- 

 dered it essential to moui^t the winding-drum on & 

 vertical axis instead of a horizontal one ; it being evi- 

 dent thnt a rope will wind on an iiprighf. drurn fip^p 



