Proceedings of the Farmer^ Club. J[69 



Mr. N. C. Meeker. — For the benefit of the many who are worldng 

 at steam plows, and who are asking opinions on their models, I 

 would state that in Illinois the Fawks plow once was supposed a 

 complete success. It received a premium of $3,000 from the 

 Illinois Central railroad, and afterward, to perfect it, this company- 

 advanced large sums. The first trial was at Centralia; the next at 

 Decatur, and on a farm where real work was to be done. The 

 result was, that it took as many teams and men to haul water and 

 coal as it would have taken to have done all the plowing. More 

 than this, the locomotive sometimes got stuck on wet ground. The 

 whole plan blew up, and after that the locomotive itself blew up. 



The Secretary. — It cost the American Institute over $1,000 to 

 have the steam plow exhibited in this city. 



Mr. Horace Greeley. — I lost $1,200 by that enterprise myself, 

 but I do not regret it. Steam plowing can be done. It is done 

 now in England. There is an objection to animals; they expend a 

 portion of their strength in getting their feet out of soft or wet 

 ground. I believe that within ten years, land will be plowed twenty 

 inches deep at a cost of one dollar an acre. Work so done will be 

 worth three times more than if performed by animals. The fuel 

 need not be coal, but peat. The vast bodies of New Jersey land 

 will be brought into cultivation, and they cannot be plowed in any 

 other way so well as by steam. Our friend Solon used to say we 

 never would have a perfect mowing machine till it would mow 

 around stumps and stones. We ought to have a steam plow, if for 

 no other purpose than to make us put our land in a better condition 

 for yielding grain. I have got out stones on my farm, in Westches- 

 ter county, at less cost than to plow around them. Still, we have 

 much land that ought not to be plowed, but which should be 

 reserved for the growth of trees. 



Mr. J. R. Sypher. — Mr. Fawks was not the man to carry out the 

 work he undertook. His boiler was not constructed so as to pre- 

 serve all the forces that can be gathered from steam. Since his 

 efforts, we have greatly improved in the construction of engines. 



Mr. Horace Greeley. — I like the plan proposed of having saws, 

 or something similar, instead of plows. The long point, running 

 into the ground, is vicious in construction. I am confident that the 

 time will come, and it is not distant, when steam will plow our 

 fields, and they will be prepared at one operation, including har- 

 rowing and sowing the seed. Farm machinery is to be considered 

 more with regard to its ex'oedition in work than as to whether it 



