26 TEAR-BOOK OF FACTS. 



certain extent, but the gases flowing from a furnace receiving 5000 

 cubical feet of blast per minute will yield (not reckoning anything 

 for the expansion of the blast, or the carbonic oxide and hydrogen 

 proceeding from the decomposition of the moisture in the atmo- 

 spheric air, or in the other materials used) will amount to full 

 7,000,000 feet per day, which gases, as now applied to .steam-boilers, 

 will scarcely raise steam enough to work two engines of 100- horse power 

 each ; but if the same amount of gas were made in a vacuum engine 

 they would generate a power equal to 1666 horses, according to the 

 calculations here referred to, or more than eight times the effect now 

 obtained from them. Hence the proposed new application of such 

 gases would be a saving of 1400-horse power — a power more than 

 sufficient to accomplish all the mechanical processes of an iron-works 

 (the blasting, rolling, pumping, hammering, &c.) capable of turning 

 out 1000 tons of iron per week. 



PROGRESS AND PROFIT OF THE STEAM PLOUGH. 



In the Times has appeared a most comprehensive paper with this 

 title, the evidence and arguments of which manifest the writer's 

 extensive acquaintance with this important subject. To quote the 

 details of this article would occupy several pages of our volume, and 

 we have only space for the close of this very able and thoroughly 

 practical paper : — 



" In conclusion, let it not be supposed that one description of 

 steam-tilling machinery is specially adapted for extensive, and 

 another only for small farms. The cost price of a Steam Plough 

 ranges from nearly S001. down to almost half this sum ; and a con- 

 siderable number of engines are at work on farms of all sizes, both 

 with Mr. Fowler's and Mr. Smith's apparatus. Mr. Fowler has 

 published thirteen reports from purchasers in ten counties, and 

 Messrs. Howard, of Bedford (manufacturers of the Woolston imple- 

 ment), have printed thirty-four reports frpm employers in twenty 

 counties, — the two publications alike embracing the experience of 

 large and other occupiers, on light, medium, and heavy land. The 

 testimony in every case is remarkable as to the quantity of work 

 got forward in each season, the economy and ;. in very 



many respects, and the proportion of horses dispensed with. These 

 testimonials, however, do not include anything like :.I1 the instances 

 of machinery supplied and working in this country. 



"Then the Continent, the West Indi istralia have be- 



come customers; and if in the south of Frame tie- steam plough 

 might eti'eet a Baring of two-thirds ii outlay while doing doubly 

 better tiling', in our dear-labour colonics t! ounds and 



vineyards will show a still greater profit, — the machinery being now 

 able to cope with the obstacles of wild land;, teeing thai its power- 

 ful subsoilers prize up stones and crack tree-roots, which master the 

 common hone-plough. Bui whatever immense fields are King open 



to the steam plough abroad, we are rapidly progressing with its 



adoption at home ; and should the rotary cultivation, so accordant 



with theory, never reward the inventors who are seeking it, WO 



