PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS, ETC. 121 



III. 



PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THE 

 USE OF STEAM WINDING DRUMS FOR 

 PLOUGHING AND TRENCHING.* 



By A. DEBAINS. 



The necessity of reconstituting vineyards destroyed by 

 phylloxera, attracted the attention of viticulturists to all 

 systems of powerful appliances capable of disturbing land 

 deeply. Deep stirring of the land is, as a matter of fact , 

 absolutely necessary to 'success in planting American vines, 

 to allow their roots to penetrate into the lower layers of the 

 disturbed soil, which retains .the rain water of the winter, 

 preserving the roots against the detrimental effects of summer 

 droughts. Many viticulturists, when their trenching or sub- 

 soiling is finished, abandon their winding drums without 

 any care under sheds, &c., where they rust and soon become 

 only fit for sale as old iron. If, on. the contrary, these 

 machines are well looked after, and kept in repair, they may 

 be used for ordinary hoeing and ploughing of vines, as we 

 will show further on ; and later on, when it is desired to plant 

 vines again they may be used as originally intended. 



To thoroughly understand the management of a winding 

 drum, and to utilize it to the utmost, we must have a good 

 knowledge of the different parts of which it consists. We will 

 study these briefly. We will not study here the heavy 

 powerful double-effect steam winding drums, which are only 

 used on large properties or by contractors. The practical 

 machine for a medium grower is that which can be worked by 

 an ordinary portable engine, as usually found on a farm, in use 

 for pumping water, chaff-cutting, threshing, sawing wood, 

 -&G. With the object of simplifying the system and reducing 

 the initial outlay, vine-growers almost blindly rushed after 

 simple-effect drum machines, that is to say, those in which 

 the plough is hauled back by a horse. If this system may 

 IDC applied to cheap drums worked by a horse, it is no 

 longer rational when steam-power is used, and if the 

 advocates of the simple drums bring forward the argument 

 of the difficulty or even the impossibility of anchoring the 



* Reoue de Viticulture. Vol. III., 1895. 



