1861. 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



146 



as impracticable, and is making efforts to get 

 up a machine something after the English 

 plan, by stationary power, drawing the plows 

 with a chain that winds around a drum ; 

 with this difference, however, the engine is 

 a tractive one to move along the land and at 

 intervals of, say a thousand feet, to be firmly 

 anchored so as to draw up the plows, when 

 it will again drive ahead and repeat the ope- 

 ration. This is not official, but we have it 

 from a source in which we place great reli- 

 ance. Mr. F. is entitled to great praise for 

 his Dcrseverance, but while we concede to 

 him all the usual and more than dogged per- 

 sistency in common with inventors to work 

 on, determined to win success, we are not 

 willing to accord him a high position as an 

 inventor. It is evident that he lacks all the 

 elements of mathematical development ne- 

 cessary in the broad field in which he as- 

 sumes to work out new principles and to ob- 

 tain new powers. In his endeavors no small 

 amount of capital has been sunk without do- 

 ing more than to prove beyond a doubt that 

 no valuable progress has been gained, and 

 we may safely say that so far as success is 

 concerned, that we are no further advanced 

 in this direction than we were ten years 

 since ; and we will predict that the next ten 

 years will make no further progress. We 

 have met the wall of adamant, beyond 

 which steam cannot push on — it has its prac- 

 tical limits, and here its giant force is stayed. 



WHERE THE STEAM PLOW CAN WORK. 



It can work on a solid sun-baked level 

 surface, like that on which the trial was 

 made at Centralia, ior on such a surface 

 the tractive power is only limited to the ca- 

 pacity of the engine, and we approach nearly 

 to the condition of a locomotive in the draw- 

 ing of a freight train on a tolerably level 

 road. The surface must be so hard that the 

 drum or propelling wheels shall not sink into 

 the soil, and so firm that it will not yield so 

 as to allow the wheels to slip ; this, and this 

 only, is the condition of the soil when a trac- 

 tive engine can be made to draw a sett of 



—2 



plows. As this condition is seldom attained, 

 we may put it down as a conceded fact, in 

 practice, at least, that no man will invest in 

 so expensive a farm implement, and wait for 

 the favorable time to plow, when he can do 

 it at a cheaper rate, and at the right time, 

 with the usual appliances of horse, ox or 

 mule. So much then for the practical con- 

 dition to operate the steam plow. 



WHERE IT won't WORK. 



We might say with one sweep of the pen 

 that it will not. work on any other place but 

 the one before indicated, but we will point 

 to some of them. It will not work on com- 

 mon prairie sod, where the land is undula- 

 ting, on the general principle that locomo- 

 tives are not well calculated to work up sharp 

 grades, and at the same time draw heavy 

 loads like the drawing of several plows 

 through a tough sod. This, when coupled 

 with soft places that occur more or less in 

 all prairie breaking, and which as a general 

 thing will interpose an insuperable obstacle 

 to success. Of course, there are small tracts 

 where these do not occur, but this is the ex- 

 ception, not the rule. It will not work at all 

 on plowed land, whether wet or dry. It will 

 not work where the ground is soft by recent 

 rains or wet on the surface, whether on sod 

 land or any other place. It will not harrow 

 in grain, plant corn or draw the reaper, nor 

 can it be used for mowing under scarcely 

 any probable condition of things.. It can- 

 not be used for ditching with any hope of 

 successful competition with the spade, and 

 the only place it will drain is the pocket of 

 any person who may be ambitious to make a 

 practical test of its value. 



WHY IT won't work. 



We might answer this question by asking 

 why locomotives have not come into general 

 use on common roads. That they have not, 

 we all know, and yet we have now and then 

 startling accounts of success in this direction. 

 When we know that a grade of forty feet to 

 the mile on a well constructed railway re- 



