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PART III. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Steam Plough. — We noticed, some time ago (p. 160.), the spirited offer 

 of Mr. Handley, of 100 gs. for the best steam plough. We hope the time 

 is not far distant when a sufficient number of subscribers may be found, at 

 all manner of sums, from 1/. upwards, to produce 1000/. for the laudable 

 and patriotic object proposed by Mr. Handley. In the mean time, this 

 gentleman's offer has stimulated two very ingenious mechanics, Messrs. 

 Wykes and Phillips, Market Street, Edgware Road, to produce the model 

 of a ploughing, or, more properly, a digging or grubbing machine, to be 

 impelled by steam. The model is well worth examining. It is arranged 

 on the principle of rendering the action of grubbing the fulcrum for moving 

 forward the machine ; so that, a certain power of steam being applied, the 

 machine would move along a ridge, or a breadth of such a number of feet 

 as might be determined on (say 6, 10, 12, or 15 ft.), at a greater or less 

 rate, according to the tenacity of the soil. Such a machine would, no 

 doubt, be applicable to many of the purposes of field culture, and more 

 especially to the working of fallows. But it would not answer for plough- 

 ing up leys, or recent or tender grass-lands to be sown after once plough- 

 ing ; neither would it plough in manure, nor form lands into drills for 

 turnips or potatoes ; nor would it harrow, hoe, or mow, or reap, all which 

 might be done by steam, as before observed (Vol. III. p. 242.). To apply 

 steam successfully to agriculture, it has always appeared to us that the 

 engineer ought not to seek for a new implement, but simply for a conve- 

 nient locomotive power for impelling the implements already in use, modi- 

 fied so as to suit the new impelling power. The power for dragging forward 

 Lumbert's mole-plough (Encyc. of Agr., § 2523.) supplies the germ of this 

 idea. There would be no difficulty in inventing a locomotive engine that 

 would move itself any where, either on rough or smooth, level or sloping 

 surfaces. There would be no difficulty of stopping this machine at any one 

 point, throwing out or down long levers, with claws at the extremities, to 

 serve as grappling-irons to retain it firmly in its position. There might then 

 be a vertical gin-wheel, with a chain, say of 100 yards. Supposing the loco- 

 motive machine taken to the first ridge of a field, the chain wound up, 

 and the end of it attached either to one or many ploughs, harrows, or other 

 implements. Then let the machine be put in motion, and advance 90 yds., 

 unwinding the chain, which will now lie on the ground in a line between 

 the steam-machine and the plough or harrow machine. Now, reverse the 

 turning of the gin-wheel, and the plough will be dragged up to the engine. 

 Change the wheel, lift up or draw in (all, of course, by the machine itself) 

 the grappling-levers, and proceed as before. To some this may seem, at 

 first sight, a slow arid awkward mode ; but, if a ridge of 12 ft. were ploughed, 

 or the width of three ridges harrowed, every time the machine advanced, a 

 20-acre field would soon be got over. Nothing could be easier than to adapt 

 ploughs and all implements, even Bell's reaping-machine (p. 295.), the 

 thrashing-machine* &c, to such a locomotive power. Whenever an ample 



