Polytechnic Association Proceedings. 9^3 



dominion of Wales." Sixteen years later, Ramsey alone received 

 another patent, in which there is strong rea.son to believe the inven- 

 tion was intended not only for plowing the ground, but also for 

 sowing the seed. What variety of engines were to be used, is not 

 clear, but inasmuch as at this time the steam engine was in its 

 infancy, we may presume that some of the now forgotten forms 

 thereof were designed to be employed. As no specifications of 

 these apparatus were filed, no definite knowledge of their construc- 

 tion and operation can be obtained, but the inference drawn from 

 the patent last named, would lead us to conclude that a traveling 

 carriage was used, for the reason that seed could not be sown by 

 machinery, unless the latter was moved along the ground, and if 

 this be true, the class of steam plows that have been most exten- 

 sively tried in this country, may have had their prototypes in the 

 dreams of projectors, two hundred and fifty years ago. 



In 1770, Richard Lovell Edgeworth patented a portable railway, 

 or artificial road, to move along with any carriage to which it 

 might be applied. This invention is said to have occupied the 

 inventor for forty years, and would appear, from the imperfect 

 records, to have been similar to the endless track of the Boydell 

 steam-plow of recent date. These obscure devices furnish the 

 most important items in the history of steam culture previous to 

 the year 1836, which may be assumed as the commencement of 

 the modern era of steam tillage. In June of this year, Thomas 

 Vaux patented a rotary harrow, in which curved teeth or tines 

 were arranged on two axles, one in front of the other, and rotated 

 in such manner as not only to pulverize the earth, but to clear each 

 other, when in operation, of clods, couch-grass, etc.; and this may 

 be taken as the representative of one class of steam tillers — the 

 rotary diggers. Three years later, Alexander McRae brought for- 

 ward a plan for cultivating land by steam power in British Guiana, 

 where the laud is flat and intersected by canals. Two punts, or 

 shallow vessels, were placed in adjacent canals, or, in other words, 

 one upon each side of the field; one punt carrying a steam engine, 

 which gave motion to a winding drum, and the other fitted simply 

 with a pulley. The plows were attached to a four-wheeled car- 

 riage, and a rope or chain attached at one end to the carriage was 

 passed around the drum of the engine on one punt, and thence 

 across the field and over the pulley on the second punt, and then 

 back to the carriage, to which its remaining end was then attached, 

 in such manner that the chain being worked alternately in oppo- 

 [Inst.] 68 



