TEA MACHINERY. 22Q 



without delay. Remember, please, that in saying that it would 

 cultivate so many acres in such a time, I mean that it would cultivate 

 two ways that is up and down and across. There would remain a 

 little hand-hoeing, &c., round the inner part of the roots of the bushes, 

 but not much, as the cultivator I would design would go partly under- 

 neath the laterals and still not hurt the roots, the outer lines being 

 much shorter than the inner ones. 



Now it is a simple matter to calculate, according to the rates of the 

 district in which the reader may be, the comparative cost of cultivating 

 1,000 acres of Tea by hand and by the steam-plough. The plough 

 would be worked for Tea by an 8-H. P. portable engine of any makers 

 manufacture. Wages for one engineman, one cooly to cut wood, 

 possibly one pair bullocks and cart-driver to bring barrels of water, two 

 coolies to shift the anchors, and two more to assist them (possibly) in 

 shifting the rope, added to the cost of fuel, and 15 per cent, per annum 

 added for repairs and deterioration, seems to be the cost of working. 

 This would be lessened by the rope and anchor-men and the wood- 

 cutter on the days when the plough was not at work. Add, however, 

 the cost of elephants or bullocks to take the engine, &c., from garden to 

 garden, and I think it will be found that the saving in expense would be 

 very great on the side of the steam-plough as regards cooly labour. 



Now, as to the feasibility of the scheme. It is difficult, without the 

 aid of plates, to describe how steam-ploughing is done. The engine 

 remains stationary at one corner of the field. Near it is a large double 

 windlass, which, when the cultivator is at work, winds up the dragging 

 rope with one barrel of the windlass, whilst from the other the rope is 

 uncoiling, which will drag the plough down the next furrow. When the 

 plough comes to the end of the furrow, two men, one at each end of the 

 rope, shift the anchors, on which are the pulleys round which the rope 

 runs : one furrow breadth forward the plough is double, one set of 

 coulters and shears being at work, while the other set is tilted up in the 

 air by the weight of a man who sits on and guides the plough. When 

 the plough is to return it is not turned round, but the man simply tilts 

 up into the air the set of ploughs that have done their work, and brings 

 down the others. Of course ploughs like this would not do for Tea : a 

 special cultivator would be needed. At the end of the furrow the 

 motion of the windlass is reversed, and the drag rope becomes in its 

 turn the following rope. In England there is an ingenious mechanical 

 contrivance for shifting the anchors, which does away with two men, 



