1853.] i OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 267 
exhibited in Hyde Park by Thompson — where also was shewn a 
working model of another digging machine by Parsons, which 
exhibited much ingenuity and combined many desirable points. 
This has since undergone improvements in various details, and is 
intended to be rendered locomotive. A machine for effecting the 
same purpose, patented by Roberts, has been tried and is likely 
through the assistance of steam to be brought to bear successfully 
as a cultivator. 
Steam traction ploughs are by no means new. Some eighteen 
years ago one was exhibited at the Highland Society’s Meeting at 
Dumfries, and Lord Willoughby D’Eresby has constantly employed 
one, arranged by himself, on his Lincolnshire estates. 
The Marquis of Tweeddale, whose name is so well and so honour- 
ably known in connexion with agricultural improvements, has 
recently adapted a plough, or rather frame of ploughs, for carrying 
out his system of deep ploughing. In this case two engines are 
employed, one at either end of the field, the plough-frame travelling 
by means of traction chains between them, and doing the work, 
some twelve to fifteen inches deep, in a most Saat manner. 
There appears to be a question as to’whether, all things considered, 
there is much gained by the application of steam thus : limited to the 
traction merely of the implement. In most cases where steam has 
successfully supplanted labor, it has demanded that the old pro- 
cesses be laid aside, and new ones, suited to the advanced require- 
ments, be adopted. The plough, itself universally acknowiedged to 
be a defective implement, has no claims to exception to this rule, 
and certainly the small amount of success attending the steam 
traction ploughs would be evidence in favour of it. 
An attempt has been made by Usher of Edinburgh, to construct 
a machine that shall by one operation satisfy all the requirements 
of cultivation. This has been tried in the field with favourable 
results, and it certainly possesses more of the elements of success 
than any other that has hitherto been brought out. The old plough 
is thrown aside and only the share and mould-board made use of ; 
some three to six rows of them are arranged round a large cylinder 
which is attached to a locomotive engine. When at work in the 
field the power is applied to this cylinder, which, by its revolution, 
drives the ploughs (or other instruments as the case may be) into the 
soil, and thus acts as the propelling agent to the whole machine. 
The soil is left in a broken condition, as by the fork or spade, and 
arrangements exist by which the three operations of moving the 
soil, sowing, and covering in the seed are done at the same time. 
It travels at the rate of three miles an hour = to nine acres a day, 
or, allowing for turning, stoppages, &c. say seven acres, which it has 
done in its various trials, for an expenditure of seventeen and 
sixpence, or two and sixpence per acre It travels well on common 
roads, ascending acclivities of one in ten, and turning round ina 
circle of sixteen feet diameter, and is adapted for any other purpose 
to which steam power is applied. 
