90 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



Skinner's Gang Plow. In the wheat regions of the West, 

 and in California, the Gang Plow has been introduced and 

 worked to advantage. This is an arrangement by Avhich one, 

 two, or more mould-boards are attached to a frame with wheels, 

 filfe plowman riding on a sulky seat. {Fig. 38.) 



Skinner's Gang Plow, which is regarded as one of the best, 

 met with, eminent success last season, giving great satisfaction 

 in many sections of the country. This machine is manufac- 

 tured by the Ames Plow Company, of Boston. With two 

 mould-boards, it requires three or four horses, which are 

 worked abreast. The point of draught can be regulated to 

 accommodate the team, and there is no side or down draught on 

 the pole. The plow can also be set to run deep or shallow, and 

 be changed in a moment without stopping. 



The Steam Plow. The efforts made within a few years to 

 introduce the steam plow upon the prairie soils of the West, 

 have not proved successful. Several trials have been made in 

 the last ten years, chiefly in the State of Illinois, but they have 

 been abandoned, and nothing of any practical importance has 

 come of them. The success attending similar efforts in Eng- 

 land, has been due to the use of fixed engines, working the 

 'iommon plow by means of wire cables. Iron machinery, coal, 

 and labor, are cheaper there than in this country ; and the same 

 appliances that might be economical there, would perhaps result ' 

 in failure here, so far as the saving of any expense is concerned. 

 Intelligent, practical farmers, have, at any rate, come to the 

 conclusion that the inventions offered to the country possess no 

 economical advantages over the simple implements now in use. 



The opinion is however still entertained, that steam plowing 



ought to be practicable upon the broad stoneless prairies of the 



West, and that it is destined, ultimately, to come into use there 



Comstock's Rotary Spader. In the Rotary Spader, a dif 



