382 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Smith, Halkelt, or Romaine has yet conceived the 

 immeasurable wonders which are in store for the 

 future farmer. What is the now accomplished fact of 

 tillage at half-price or double depth, or the di^pensina: 

 with one-half of a farm team ? Let us have twenty 

 acres tilled a foot deep in a day, at a cost of common 

 horsa-ploughing ; or a hundred acres of wlieat carried 

 to the rick-yard between dawn and dusk, using- only 

 one horse for fetching the engine's drink — and steam 

 culture may then have somewhat to crack of. Such 

 great expectations have been raised by speculative 

 writers and by imaginative speakers, that there is a 

 wide-spread tendency to disparage the inventions al- 

 ready before the public, and to conclude that, because 

 the grand ideas of theorists and rhetoricians have not 

 yet been realized, it is wise to wait until something 

 wonderful turns up. Will our sanguine friends, there- 

 fore, permit us to expose the fallacies whichwe bolieve 

 lurk at the bottom of their hopes? 



If we were addressing the practical man only — who 

 is quite willing to improve the nett income from his 

 farm, if we can show him how — it would merely be 

 necessary to demonstrate that a steam plough or culti- 

 vator, costing £500 to £700, is a good investment for 

 capital, certain to yield a very handsome profit. -And 

 any machine which will give in saving of horse-keep 

 and increase of cropping some one to two or three 

 hundred pounds clear annual proceeds from the above 

 outlay, ought to be considered a successful invention, 

 and a great boon to the farmer. But we wish to dispel 

 the illusive fancies of those persons who will not be 

 satisfied with a steam plough that can only relieve 

 them of difficulties, set a bad business on its legs, and 

 make their agricultureaprofitableinsteadof losing game 

 — who demand wondrous, almost incredible results, 

 and declare steam cultivation to be otherwise a failure. 



In the first place, the examples of the factory and 

 railroad do not fairly apply to the case of a farm. The 

 weight of raw material obtainable by the manufacturer 

 is unlimited, and the pace at which spinning is possible 

 depends solely upon the capabilities of the machinery 

 employed. But the arable field is open to but slight 

 extension — namely, by increasing the depth of staple • 

 and its conversion into crops depends but little upon 

 the power of the mechanism used for tilling it. Seed- 

 beds when prepared must await the influences of a 

 year's meteorology before the grain, the roots, or the 

 fodder can be gathered. The manufacturer doubles his 

 motive- power, and thereby doubles the amount of his 

 products; or applies ten-fold the power, and gets ten 

 times the product. But the farmer, from the very 

 nature of the vegetation he is confined to, cannot do 

 more by any mechanical assistance than improve and 

 expedite the processes of tillage which at certain sea- 

 sons prepare for or promote the growth of ci'ops. Still, 

 in these operations, it may be said, steam-power ought 

 to exceed amazingly the present slow-coach work of 

 horses, in similar proportion to its achievements on 

 the railway. Now, here again is an unfair comparison. 

 The task in the field for the steam-engine and for the 

 team is the same : the soil has to be broken up, sub- 



divided, perhaps inverted, or thrown into such forms of 

 surface as are required for the crops. But on the I'oad 

 it is not so. Let steam attempt to drag loads on the 

 same terms, tliat is, along the same rugged roads that 

 horses travel on, and we have yet to learn that any 

 very surprising results have been attained. Steam 

 locomotion has done wonders by leaving the horses' 

 task altogether, and running upon a pathway expressly 

 provided for it. And, if the comparison be made at 

 all, it should be between steam-power and horses pul- 

 ling loads upon the same level iron rails, when it will 

 be found that the superiority of steam traction consists 

 in rapidity, steadiness, and untiring persistence — just 

 as we find in steam ploughing; and the weight capable 

 of being hauled by horses is wonderfully increased by 

 the railroad, as well as that possible by the traction of 

 a steam engine. 



And now let us make just a simple calculation, 

 based upon what is known to be the resistance of soil 

 to the best-formed implements, and the known power 

 of a steam-engine, in order to sec what reason 

 there is for expecting hitherto-unheard-of results 

 in the performance of steam culture. Take 34 

 stones as a common draught of a plough doing 

 7 -inch deep work, owing to the sledging action, 

 the draught of the plough empty will be about 12 

 stones, as proved by many experiments with the dy- 

 namometer, so that the remaining 22 stones of draught 

 is all that is due to the labour of cutting and turning the 

 slice. A Fowler four-furrow steam-plough may betaken? 

 therefore, as having (22 x 4 =) 88 stones draught due to 

 its work. As the weight of the plough in work is 

 balanced by that of the other set, the draught due to the 

 plough empty is just that of the implement riding on 

 its wheels, which, judging from the allowance made for 

 carts in ordinary farm roads and the surface of un- 

 ploughed land, will be about 20 stones. In the absence, 

 then, of any direct experiments with the machine, we 

 may fairly take the total draught of the 4-furrow steam- 

 plough at about 108 stones in cases where one ordinary 

 horse-plough has a total draught of 34 stones. At the 

 rate of 3 miles per hour this draught of 108 stones is 

 equivalent to 1,512 pounds raised 264 feet per minute, 

 or to 399,108 pounds lifted 1 foot per minute. And as a 

 mechanical horse-power is 33,0001bs. lifted one foot 

 per minute, the power expended in working the steam 

 plough is that of 12 horses. Now let it be observed 

 that, in thii fair and average case, the mere execution 

 of the tillage itself demands no less than 12 horse 

 power applied at the implement ; where then is the 

 margin of possibility of making a common portable 

 engine, or indeed any engine, accomplish very much 

 more work ? When it is considered that in any way 

 by which the motive power may be communicated to 

 the implement — whether by a wire-i'ope, or a flying 

 hemp rope, or by causing the engine itself to travel— 

 a large amount of power must necessarily be con- 

 sumed between the engine crank-shaft and the plough, 

 by friction and inertia of the moving parts, it will be 

 seen that only a small increase of economy of motive 

 power can be hoped for, in any future invention. 



