STEAM CULTIVATION. 



139 



THE IMPKOVED SINGLE-ENGINE SYSTEM. 



Howard's steam-ploughing 1 machinery on the single-engine 

 system is shown at work in Fig. 87. This is an improve- 

 ment on the old single-engine or roundabout system, as the 



Fig. 87. Single-engine System. 



engine here employed (Howard's " Farmer's Engine " for 

 ploughing on the single-engine system) is not stationary, 

 but moves itself along one headland. The automatic anchor, 

 which is remarkably simple and effective, moves along the 

 opposite headland at each bout as the work proceeds. In 

 this way much less time and labour are required to start 

 work in the field than with any other single-engine system, 

 and a shorter length of rope is used. Only two men, the 

 engine-driver and the ploughman, with a lad for the rope 

 porters, are employed. 



The advantages of the single-engine system are in the 

 comparative cheapness of the tackle, and in its superior fitness 

 for very hilly or awkwardly shaped fields, as it can then be 

 worked on the stationary or roundabout method with two 

 automatic anchors. Its disadvantages consist in loss of 

 power, great length of wire rope, wasteful expenditure 

 of time in removals, and great quantity of apparatus- 

 necessary. 



