122 REPORT — 1853. 



tools, other more expeditious and more complete machines of cultivation have been 

 Bought after and invented. Omitting the various clod-crushers and harrows, these may 

 be conveniently divided into — 1, ploughing machines drawn by stationary steam- 

 engines; 2, locomotive steam-jiloughs ; and 3, machines, chiefly rotatory, for pul- 

 verizing by means of forks, spades or claws. 



Amongst the first class, the most remarkable are the ploughing-frames of Lord 

 Willoughby d'Eresby and of the Marquis of Tweeddale, differing in their details, yet 

 both attended, more or less, with some of the inconveniences of the horse-plough; but 

 successful, inasmuch as they substitute a more expeditious and powerful agent for 

 animal traction. The Marquis of Tweeddale's ploughing machine consists of a frame, 

 containing two double ploughs, resembling the common turnwrist plough, one half of 

 each being in the air, whilst the other half is in the ground. The frame is drawn 

 across the field by wire ropes attached to two steam-engines stationed at opposite 

 headlands; both ploughs being reversed at each turn, so that the slices are always 

 laid in the same direction. The work of each plough is 15 inches deep and 13 

 inches wide, equal to 26 inches in the frame, and the execution is faultless. By 

 means of a beam about 18 feet long, projecting from each engine at right angles to 

 the ploughing-frame, and a simple apparatus attached to it, the ploughs are lifted at 

 each turn and deposited two furrows, or 26 inches, in advance of their previous posi- 

 tion. Thus the frequent removal of the engines is avoided. They are, however, 

 locomotive and run upon wooden rails laid for the purpose. The machine ploughs 

 three acres per day, and requires four men to work it, besides a man and horse to 

 bring water. The depth ploughed (15 inches) is unprecedented except by the horse- 

 ploughing of the Marquis himself, who, by the aid of the latter, so improved the fer- 

 tility of two entire fai-ms as to have raised their annual value in five years from 7s. 6d. 

 to 3/. per acre. 



A more decided advance in steam-ploughing has been made by Mr. Usher of Edin- 

 burgh, who boldly abandoned the old mode of traction altogether, and caused his 

 steam-engine to cross the land on a broad roller, attaching to it a cylindrical frame- 

 work of plough-points and mould-boards, which, whilst being lowered into the ground 

 to the required depth, is made to rotate, disintegrating the soil more completely than 

 the ordinary plough, without compressing the bottom of the furrow, the thrust of the 

 mould-boards at the same time aiding the forward motion of the engine, and enabling 

 it to mount inclinations which it could not cope with by the mere adhesion of the 

 roller. As at present constructed, the power is about 10 horses, and when worked to 

 a depth of seven or eight inches, it will plough about six acres per day. Its great 

 weight, about six tons, is a serious drawback, but that may be considerably reduced ; 

 and no other rotatory machine so successfully inverts the soil, though it is still excelled 

 in that respect by the ordinary traction ploughs. Usher's steam-plough has been re- 

 peatedly worked in the Lothians, and its use was not attended with any difficulties 

 beyond those which must be expected in all new inventions. 



With reference to machines for digging by means of spades, the author is not aware 

 of any that have been put into actual operation. The machine exhibited by Thomp- 

 son, in the agricultural department of the Crystal Palace of 1851, consisted of two 

 series of spades at right angles to each other, the second series covering the spaces left 

 by the first, and both being forced into the ground by a cranked shaft, borne in a 

 rectangular frame. 



The last, and apparently the most promising division, is that of the rotatory forking 

 or clawing implements. 



A light machine of this kind was constructed so long as thirty years back by Morton 

 of Leith; but it comes rather under the class of revolving harrows than of cultivators 

 properly so called. Foremost amongst the latter in point of date is that of Lady 

 Vavasour, exhibited at the show of the Royal Agricultural Society at Bristol, which, 

 though unsuccessful, may be regarded as tlie precursor of the more practical rotatory 

 forking and subsoiling machines that have since been constructed. Lady Vavasour's 

 implement consisted of a cylinder studded with prongs set spirally around it, which 

 penetrated the ground by the weight of the cylinder and framing, and broke or tore 

 it up as the latter was drawn forward. 



It was succeeded, after an interval of some years, by the cultivators of the Hon. 

 Mr. Clive and of Josiah Parkes. One of the latter has been used in subsoiling the 

 estate of Mr. Marshall, at Patrington near Hull Here the cylinder of Lady Vavasoyr, 



