AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 637 



require 300,000 trees a year. 5,000 acres of forest are cleared of 

 timber for that use every year. 120,000,000 of passengers are 

 carried annually, reckoning 14 to a ton. The fare is .£20,000,000 

 sterling a year. 



"What a contrast between old slow travelling and this. The first 

 old excursionist, Asclepiades, who travelled abroad seated on the 

 back of a cow, and lived on her milk by the way. 



[London Farmer's Magazine, December, 1857.] 



STEAM PLOW. 



Fowler^s Steam Plow. 



To Mr. Fowler belongs the honor of applying effectually the 

 aid of steam as a draught power in agriculture. I first noticed it 

 in 1854, at the meeting of the Royal English Agricultural Society 

 of Lincoln, where Mr. Fowler had one of Clayton and Shuttle- 

 worth's six horse power engines, stationed upon the hill side, near 

 the top of the field. With this light engine he was executing 

 drainage work in the lower end of the field, requiring the united 

 strength of one hundred and eighty horses, the clay being so tena- 

 cious, and the depth (four and a half feet) so great, as to cause 

 the plow to move not faster than eight yards per minute. 



BoydelPs is the universally known steam horse, which walks 

 on his numerous feet or shoes. 



Collinson Hall's traction engine is similar, but has the endless 

 railway very compact, and of much less weight, not exceeding 

 seven tons, water and all. It employs three hundred to three 

 hundred and twenty pounds pressure per inch. It will require 

 •weight in the engine to draw w^ell. Mr. Smith has another sta- 

 tionary engine, by grubbing. Mr. Fisken another, working by a 

 travelling windllass. 



Romain's Canadian steam plow was tried in England, on the 

 lltli of September, 1857, with marked success. It is now the 

 property of Mr. Crosskill, who is so well known in Europe by 

 his invention of the machine clod breaker. The first working 

 model of his plow was made for tlje Paris exhibition of 1855. 

 The Canadian committee voted him £800, equal to $3,200, to 



