36 QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



plow. Anotlier system of breaking subsoil oa fields where a root crop is 

 contemplated is, after the field has been plowed and harrowed, to trench 

 out at three feet, and in every open trench to run a subsoil plow or coulter 

 breaking the hard part, apply the fertilizer, ridge over by splitting the 

 standing ridges, draw down to a flat surface, and drill the seed directly 

 over the fertilizer, and over the deeply broken bed through which will 

 freely drain all superfluous moisture and into which the roots can deeply 

 delve. 



Sandy soils, which do not retain moisture, nor offer impediments to the 

 downward development of roots as carrots, parsnips or mangolds, do not 

 require subsoiling. 

 Steam 202. Q. Why has not steam plowing been popular in the United States ? 



Plowing. ^ YoT two reasons : 



First. In the old States the farms are not large enough to warrant the 

 purchase of such expensive apparatus, the cost being $10,000 to $20,000, 

 according to style and size. 



Second. On the large farms of the West ; far removed from well-ap- 

 pointed machine shops, the difficulty in making repairs and the difflculty 

 in holding expert machinists, are all serious. 



The writer has known of the importation of two complete sets of plow- 

 ing engines and tackle of Fowler's make, each costing about $18,000, 

 neither of which ever paid the freight. 



The writer worked on Bloomsdale farm during the Summers of '71 and 

 '72, endeavoring to perform plowing by direct traction by the use of a 

 three-wheel rubber-tired Scotch engine, but gave up the scheme as im- 

 practicable. 

 Systems. 203. Q. Describe briefly the methods of plowing by steam? 



A. In Europe there are three distinct systems of drawing the plows, 

 harrows, etc., etc. 



First. The direct system, by which self-propelling steam engines pass 

 over the land and drag the implements. This is very wasteful of power 

 and impracticable on soft or slippery soil. 



Second. The rope and windlass system, under which the locomotive re- 

 mains on the headland, and pulls the implements back and forth, by 

 means of a wire rope winding on a drum beneath the engine and across 

 the field to the opposite headland, where it winds around a similar drum 

 on a second engine, or around a drum on an anchored windlass. The im- 

 plements being in gangs of plows, cultivators or harrows. 



In New Jersey there has been built a completely designed farm traction 

 engine for chopping the earth instead of plowing it. This new system, 

 one of many knives revolving rapidly, was conceived at and first tested 

 on Bloomsdale Farm, August, 1886, the chopping attachment being ap- 

 plied to a steam farm spader, then being tried. The cutting arrangements 

 are of many independent, rapidly revolving knives, chopping out slivers 

 of earth something similar to the chips of wood cut by a steam planer. 

 Such a system of choppers does not take so much power as required to 



