420 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



THE STEAM PLOUGH. 



Fawkcs' etcam plough has attracted the most attention at the west, and as 

 it contains the idea of a traction engine to draw the ploughs after it, may be 

 considcu"ed as a fair exponent of this kind of ploughing. This implement was 

 lirst tested at Centralia, at the State fair of Illinois, September 17, 1858, more 

 than five years ago. The place of trial was on level land, baked hard by the 

 summer drought; of course, just the condition to succeed with the traction 

 engine. To this six ploughs Avere attached, cutting a foot each. The success 

 was complete under such favorable conditions, and the crowd of peoj)lc in 

 attendance greeted it with rounds of applause. 



The next public trial was at Decatur, Illinois, in the month of November. 

 There the conditions were less favorable. The ground was moist and the 

 sloughs soft. The failure there was as signal as the success at Centralia hud 

 been two mouths previous. The difference between the level, sun-baked surface 

 of Egypt and that of the friable clay loam of central Illinois was a wide one ; 

 and the people in attendance went home disappointed. 



The next trial was made at Freeport, at the State fair of 1859, with a new 

 engine and such improvements as would seem required to overcome the diffi- 

 culties found in the yielding loam of the northern prairie, but another disap- 

 pointment followed. It may be well to mention that the committees appointed 

 to examine it i-eported warmly in its favor, and many of the newspapers pro- 

 nounced it a success, but the practical farmers began to have doubts of its iinal 

 snccess. The next week it was tried at the United States fair at Chicago in 

 competition with Waters' steam plough. Neither of them met the expecta- 

 tions of the people, and the laurels gained at Freeport by the premature 

 judgment of the scientific committee were nearly lost. 



The Illi«iois Central Railroad Company had offered a premium of $3,000 for 

 a successful steam plough. The plough was to be tried at three different points. 

 The first point was on the Avriter's farm. The ground on which it was tried 

 was slightly undulating, uncultivated prairie, in all its native wildness, being 

 part of an enclosed field on which no stock had been permitted to graze. lu 

 getting to the field a soft, low piece of ground had to be passed over, but this 

 land was not so soft but that a team could easily haul a ton over it ; yet the 

 weight of the engine sunk the drum so deeply into the soft soil that it could 

 not be passed over by the aid of steam. This was the fii'st serious failure in 

 that trial, demonstrating that the machine could not pass over low prairie, even 

 when the turf was unbroken, for the drum, so soon as steam w5s applied to it, 

 would bury itself too deep for extrication, though the same machine might be 

 hauled over with other power with safety ; thus showing that the traction 

 engine can never be run over soft ground, whether from moisture or cultivation. 



The amount of prairie broken in the course of some two weeks of trial w'as 

 about four and a half acres. The first attempt was made with eight ploughs, 

 cutting a foot each, but four of these had to be taken off", and the machine, 

 without coal or water to run on the hard prairie over half a mile, (the length 

 of the field,) was put to its utmost to do the work. The field had a gentle 

 slope to the east, in the direction of the ploughing, with a grade, in no place 

 more than forty feet to the mile. So well satisfied was the inventor of the 

 failure of the trial that no further effort was made as contemplated in cultivated 

 land and at other points. Hundreds of farmers and mechanics visited the 

 machine when on trial, but all went away disappointed. The inventor, ou 

 further consideration, concluded that he could yet remedy the defect so as to 

 meet all objections, and another machine was made in one of the largest shops 

 of the Union, and under the hands of superior workmen, but with no better 

 succeBs. 



• Waters, of De4;roit, brought out the second machine, with which we learn, on 

 good authoritv. he broke up nearly a hundred acres of orairie and abandoned 



