1906] 



LANDRETH— THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 167 



Operated by wealthy and very progressive men, it not being profitable 

 to steam plow at one operation less than a field of forty or fifty acres, 

 but of late years conseqi^ent upon the rapid extension of agricultural 

 operations, especially in wheat growing, fields of grain have become 

 so immense as to satisfy the most progressive. In England the 

 system of plowing is distinct from what Americans have always 

 clung to, even although up to quite lately with disappointing results. 

 In Europe the system is altogether what is called the cable or rope 

 system, where upon a field preferably not less than four hundred 

 yards long a traction engine with a large horizontal revolving drum 

 beneath the boiler has placed opposite to it at the other end of the 

 field a corresponding heavily anchored revolving horizontal drum. 

 Around these two drums passes a wire cable of about three fourths 

 of an inch thick, which drags backward and forward a gang of 

 plows of six, or even ten or twelve mould boards, an automatic 

 device, after each set of furrows are turned, moving forward the 

 anchor at the far end ; the steam engine on the headland also moving 

 forward to the same distance as the anchor, so that they are always 

 on parallel lines. One engine and opposite anchor windlass forms 

 what is termed the " single system," while in the '' double system " 

 there are two opposite engines. 



These plowing outfits cost from ten to twenty thousand dollars, 

 an amount which only can be assumed by a large operator. Not 

 more than four or five of these outfits have been imported, one in 

 the neighborhood of Philadelphia being imported by Colonel Joseph 

 Patterson, who thirty years ago endeavored to establish a beet sugar 

 farm and factory at Egg Harbor, N. J., which operation on account 

 of unfavorable climatic influence was a failure, the plowing appa- 

 ratus being subsequently sold to Wade Hampton, thence to Cuba. 



Americans have wanted something cheaper, something easier to 

 manage, and have spent large amounts of money in endeavoring to 

 plow by direct action, using self-moving engines on three or four 

 wheels pulling after them gangs of plows, just as a locomotive pulls 

 a train of cars. This process up to a few years past met with so 

 many difficulties, that really there were few thoroughly satisfactory 

 applications of the American idea, for at seasons when the land is 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, XLV. 183K, PRINTED OCT. 27, I906. 



