ILLUSTRATIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF MACHI- 

 NERY, &c., ON EXHIBITION AT THE 31st ANNUAL 

 FAIR OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 1859. 



Fawkes'' American Steam Plow. — (J. W. Fawkes, Christiana, Penn.) 



The American Institute, with a liberality which has always characterized the 

 action of its Board of Managers, in all matters pertaining to improvements in 

 agricultural implements, oifered a premium of ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS for 

 the best steam plow which should be produced at their Agricultural Fair, in New 

 York, in the month of September, 1859. None other but that of Mr. Fawkes' 

 was entered for competition, and the Institute, without hesitation, awarded to him 

 the liberal premium above mentioned, which, together with expenses, were prompt- 

 ly paid him at the close of the fair. 



This machine has been tested in practical operation, before eight different com- 

 mittees of practical agriculturists, machinists, and scientific men, viz.: 



1. A committee of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society, /at'0ra6Ze report. 



2. The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, grand gold medal 

 and report. 



3. Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, Scott legacy premium of ^20 and medal. 



4. Illinois State Agricultural Society, $500 premium in 1858, and @1,500 pre- 

 mium in 1859. 



5. United States Agricultural Society, at their Seventh Annual Exliibition at 

 Chicago, grand gold medal of honor. 



6. Illinois Central Railroad Company, §'1,500 premium and rejjorf corroborating 

 the above awards. 



7. American Institute, at New York, premium of ^1,000. 



8. A committee of scientific and practical machinists, appointed by the Illinois 

 State Agricultural Society, and of the Illinois Central Railroad Company. 



John W. Fawkes' history is a complete commentary upon the possibilities of 

 genius and industry. The son of a farmer in Lancaster county. Pa., he received 

 the limited education usually given to boys in the country. He was apprenticed 

 to learn the carpenter's trade, but in a few years took a small machine-shop, and 

 built seed-drills and lime-spreaders, acting himself as manager and general fore- 

 man, without having other qualifications for the post than a natural aptitude for 

 mechanics. Traveling frequently, in 1851, through the prairie country of the 

 west, he saw the necessity for an application of steam-power to the tillage of the 

 vast fields; and one idea giving birth to others in rapid sequence, he gradually 

 matured a plan, and in the fall of 1855, reduced it to shape by making a model of 

 his engine. His only tool was a primitive sort of lathe, the mandril of which he 

 made from an old screw-bolt. The model completed, he took it to Washington 

 and entered a caveat. He then went to Christiana, Pa., where he found friends to 

 advance the means to complete his patent. His first idea of a steam-traveling 

 engine was, that it should have the power applied to a large drum, bulged in the 

 middle like a barrel; and he has never changed it, except in minor details. 



Description of the Neio Plow. 

 The engine is a high pressure one, with an upright tubular boiler containing 228 1| 

 inch tubes, a 9-inch cylinder, and 15-inch stroke. It \vorks direct a crank shaft, 

 which revolves inside the sleeve of a drum-wheel, through spur gearing. The 

 drum has three iron spiders, and a heavy wooden face, which is preferable to an 

 iron face, as the latter, becoming quickly bright, slips on sod ground, and thus not 



