470 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



and engine. This is similar to Fowler's plan, except tliat he uses a loco- 

 motive to move along the headlands. 



Each of these methods of employing steam has its peculiar difficulties and 

 defects. In the first one, two hoi'ses would be required to draw an engine 

 of the lightest construction over soft ground, and up and down hill ; and 

 the advantage of the machine over animal power alone, would be only the 

 difference between its work and what the team would do without it. The 

 inventor, however, calculates that, with an engine of two-horse power, and 

 of suitable construction, working a revolving axle, carrying tines armed 

 with a kind of short spade towards their points, he can do the work of 

 twelve horses, giving the work of ten horses and their attendants for the 

 cost of fuel and repairs, pay of attendants, interest of capital, &c. 



In Smith's or the Wolston method, the mode of transferring the power is 

 indirect, the apparatus is complex and clumsy, and its success, thus far, 

 has been but small. In the third plan, or that of the warping engine, the 

 inventor asserts that he requires an engine of less than one half the weight, 

 power, or cost, of any locomotive ; that he avoids all indirect strain upon 

 his cable, by getting the engine to warp itself from one side of tTie field to 

 the other, by means of a single rcpe passing a couple of times round a drum j 

 that the anchor at either side can be removed and passed forward six or 

 eight feet, by one man, while the engine is travelling across the field ; and 

 that, when using rotary cultivators, he has but little strain upon his cable ; 

 and lastly, that when he is drawing plows, &c., he has the whole traction 

 power of his cable to prevent his being brought to a stand by his wheels 

 slipping. The fourth plan, like that of Smith's, is complex and cumber- 

 some, and cannot be regarded as successful however highly English journals 

 and scientific societies may speak of Fowler's steam plowing. 



The only other form of engine for us to examine, is the stationary one — 

 that Is, an engine permanently located upon some part of the farm. The 

 stationary engine possesses many advantages ; It can be constructed, for less 

 cost and of greater power than any other ; it may be connected, at pleasure, 

 with mills, thrashing machines, pumps, a fire-engine, &c.; it can be worked 

 with a smaller consumption of fuel, per horse power, than any other ; and 

 its fuel may be of the cheapest kind. But how is a stationary engine to do 

 work upon all parts of a farm ? This is a puzzling question, and we know 

 of but one way of answering It, a way which was hinted at In a paper, read 

 last year before a society in England, and one which a friend has had on 

 paper and In his mind for several years. The Inventor of this plan supposes 

 his farm to be of a rectangular shape, and, regardiag his engine-house as 

 an origin of co-ordinates, he lays a tube, as an axis of absclsus, parallel 

 ■with one side of the farm. Connected with this tube and crossing it at 

 right angles, at a thousand feet apart, he lays ordinate tubes, to within one 

 hundred feet of each side of the farm ; along these ordinate tubes, and at 

 intervals of two hundred feet, he places plugs or taps whereby a connection 

 can be made, at any time, between the tubes and the surface. Through 

 these tubes, then, he conveys the power of the engine to any of the taps or 



