80 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



two plows are in work at once, having the draught of four horses, the strain upon the rapidly- 

 running cord will thus be less than half a horse's draught. We were informed by the exhi- 

 bitor that a four-horse engine is sufficiently powerful to work two plows, and that with four hun- 

 dred-weight of coal it will plow four acres in a day, the expense for labor being only that of two 

 men and a boy. If this be strictly the fact, we have a complete invention able to plow light 

 land at a cost of say 3*. per acre. That it is not far from the truth we are sure, for we our- 

 selves saw one plow drawn at the rate of at least two miles per hour when the engine had only 

 seven pounds or eight pounds pressure upon the square inch, and this was an'engine of six- 

 horse power at 40 pounds pressure. To be s r :re, the land had been previously plowed, pul- 

 verized, subjected to the trial of all sorts of drills, and been afterwards well trampled by 

 hundreds of people, and consolidated with rain, so that the possible quantity and quality of 

 the work could not well be ascertained. The plowing we saw was respectably though roughly 

 done, but there was one point really performed the furrows were well turned. If a steam 

 cultivator can invert the soil thoroughly and cheaply, we may put up with a little imperfection 

 in the straightness of cutting and evenness of laying. The method of anchoring the pulleys, 

 and the arrangement of the pulleys and ropes, is very ingenious, and can hardly be explained 

 with brevity. The anchorage consists of a plate or plow, a few feet in length, and eight 

 inches only in depth ; this can be easily drawn forward in the ground without the trouble of 

 digging holes, taking up, setting down again, &c., and yet it presents a sufficient resistance 

 sideways to the pull of the ropes. A wheel, pinion, and crank, on each anchor is used to draw 

 it by means of a rope towards a fixed post, when it is required to be shifted. The arrange- 

 ment of the ropes about the anchored pulleys is like that of the chains in a travelling crane, 

 the anchorage being shifted forwards at intervals without altering the length of the rope. 

 The plows are not rigidly attached to the travelling frame, but are hung by short iron beams, 

 which form levers, having a slight degree of play up and down. There are four plows two 

 before and two behind the carriage, pointing opposite ways, a neat lever movement lifting 

 two out of work and dropping the other pair of plows in ; so that the machine can plow both 

 ways without having to turn round at the land's end." 



Boydell's Steam Horse, or "Traction Engine." 



A NEW carriage without a name, but which is described as a sort of portable railway ma- 

 chine, has been exhibited in London. It is a carriage that takes its own railway along with 

 it rails, plank-bearings, and all and keeps putting down and taking up its track as it pro- 

 ceeds. This strikes one at first like the idea of getting into a basket and lifting yourself by 

 the handles, but the editor of Chambers's Journal has seen the machine operate, and thus de- 

 scribes it : 



" It is evident that a flat deal-board will not, weight for weight, sink so far down into a bed 

 of mud as will the narrow tire of a cart-wheel. It is evident, too, that cart-wheels may have 

 a railway tire or edge, instead of an ordinary tire or edge : and that a line of rails admits of 

 being laid down upon a wooden plank. A person, likewise, may readily conceive the idea of 

 laying down one of these rail-planks under each wheel ; and this, indeed, is very much like 

 what is ordinarily done in the construction of a common railway. The problem, therefore, 

 was this : to construct the wheels in such a manner, that by means of certain mysterious-look- 

 ing levers, pins, screws, and iron arms, these railway-planks, when passed over by the wheels, 

 should be taken up by the machinery, and laid down in a new spot ; and this problem has 

 actually been solved. Each wheel admits of being represented as consisting of a circle in- 

 scribed within a hexagonal frame of flat boards, each furnished with railway-trimmings. If 

 the hexagonal frame be supposed cut or divided into six component planks, one of these 

 planks laid down beneath each carriage-wheel, and the carriage itself pushed forward, there 

 would be supplied for it a short railway, having a length equal to the length of each plank ; 

 and the carriage having run on to the extremity of the rail-planks, might easily be transferred 

 to another pair, if they could be placed in due opposition with the last. In this manner, by 

 means of two sets of alternating planks, the carriage might be made to run to any required 

 distance. Now, this is just that which is accomplished by the rotation of the wheels them- 



