914 Transactions of tee American Institute. 



site directions, the carriage, with itij plows, would be drawn across 

 the field, the position of the punts being of course changed as 

 the width of the plowed land increased. This invention shows the 

 principle of drawing the plows across the field by ropes, as in the 

 class to which Fowler's plow belongs, and also shows another char- 

 acteristic of this class in the fact that it was provided with two sets 

 of plows capable of being raised alternately from the ground, and 

 designed to enable the apparatus to work, when drawn in either 

 direction, without turning. It should be mentioned, however, that 

 in the year 1800, a drain plow was produced, with which the wind- 

 ing chahi was employed; but in this case it was proposed to operate 

 the chain by hand. We thus see that the essential characteristics 

 or principles of operation involved in the three great classes of 

 steam tillers. The traction engine di'awing the plows, the rotary 

 diggers and the plows actuated by chains, or their equivalents, 

 extending across the field, were all known many yeai's ago, and 

 strengthens the opinion we have expressed, that whatever favor- 

 able results may have been obtained from modern experiments in 

 steam culture, have sprung, not from the introduction of important 

 new mechanical ideas, but from the greater skill and nicety of 

 workmanship shown in building them. 



Most prominent of the traction engine system was the plowing 

 machine, furnished with the Boydell endless rails, a revival, or, at 

 most, an application, as we have hinted, of the Edgeworth traveling 

 road-way of a hundred years ago. The Bo^^dell plow was for a 

 time the subject of considerable laudation, but on extended trial 

 was found incapable of competing with others, and its practical 

 employment has been declared by high authority to be altogether 

 out of the question. The system of locomotives traveling over the 

 land was not given up, however, without much eflbrt to obviate its 

 manifest objections; but these efibrts appear to have been directed 

 mainly to the employment of rotaiy digging devices, the gang-plow 

 method having apparently met with but little favor. As exam- 

 ples, we might mention Alger's rolling forker, in " which a set of 

 rowels of large diameter, m ith curved tines or teeth, being set in 

 motion by the onward progress of the implement, penetrate and 

 lift up the soil, while a second and smaller set of rowels are 

 employed to clear the teeth." This machine was clauned at the 

 time to be very effective, but it will be noticed that, except in 

 the relative size of the two sets of so-called rowels, it operates on 

 substantially the same principle as the digger of Richard Vaux, 



