VII 



THE STEAM TRACTOR AS A MOTOR FOR 

 PLOWING 



HISTORY 



THE early history of attempts to apply the power of 

 steam to the world's great work of transportation 

 is of intense interest. The idea of the traction 

 engine goes back to James Watt, the discoverer 

 of steam. As early as 1759, his attention was called to the 

 possibility of building a carriage to be driven by steam. His 

 partner, Mathew Boulton, was later urged to construct such 

 a "fiery chariot," but the first self -moving steam carriage was 

 apparently built by a French army officer, named Cugnot, 

 whose second engine, built in 1770, is still preserved in Paris. 

 Sixteen years later an American, Oliver Evans, asked 

 the Pennsylvania Legislature for a monopoly on his 

 method of applying steam to the propelling of wagons. 

 From this time on, until Stephenson's railway locomotive 

 of 1825, inventors of steam carriages were numerous 

 in both Europe and America. However, the prevail- 

 ing idea up to the time of Stephenson's invention and 

 even later was the development of steam carriages for 

 the transportation of passengers and freight over ordinary 

 roads. 



The first recorded steam plowing engine in the United States 

 was that of J. W.Fawkes, who built in 1858 a plowing "drag," 

 which he operated in Pennsylvania. A two-cylinder engine, 

 with 9- by 15-inch cylinders, was geared to a drum six feet 



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