48S Ploughing hy Steam. 



it, which will make it separate easier. Put the turf in the machine, which 

 will separate it into small fibres. Harrow the field with a light harrow before 

 you sow it. Take the fibres, which have been through the machine, in baskets, 

 and sow it, broad cast, over the land ; after it is sown, run a light roll over 

 the field, which will compress it, and mat it together. It will, by the above 

 process, become a good meadow the following year. Turf prepared in this 

 manner is sometimes sown on wheat, intended for a meadow. It nourishes 

 the corn while it is growing; and, as the stubble decays, it becomes a fine 

 pasture. If there is a difficulty in getting turf, select one of the most mossy 

 meadows, and apply a small grooving plough, which has been manufactured 

 for that purpose, which can be drawn by a pony, and which will take off the 

 turf about Sin. wide, and ]a in. deep. You will very much improve your 

 meadows by these means; and you will destroy the moss, and encourage a 

 new vegetation. Experience has proved that the grooves, 14 in. apart, have 

 had the desired effect. 



Art. III. Ploughing by Steam. 



From the commencement of this Magazine, we have advocated the idea of 

 applying steam to the plough, as well as to the thrashing-machine; and we 

 have lately had the pleasure of hearing of this idea being realised. In Vol. 

 VI. for 1830, p. 106., a notice is given of a reward offered by Henry Handley, 

 Esq., of Culverthorpe, near Sleaford, in Lincolnshire (one of the M.P.'s for 

 the county), of 100 guineas for the invention of a steam-plough. Such a 

 plough, combining an apparatus for draining and cultivating bogs, has been 

 invented by John Heathcoat, Esq., M.P. for Tiverton, and tried, in June last, 

 on the Red Moss, near Bolton, in Lancashire. According to the local news- 

 papers, " about six acres of raw moss were turned up in a few hours, and 

 turned up in the most extraordinary style; sods 18 in. in breadth, and 9 in. in 

 thickness, being cut from the furrow, and completely reversed in position ; the 

 upper surface of the sod being placed exactly where the lower surface had 

 been before." 



It would occupy too much room in a periodical in which agriculture is kept 

 subordinate to gardening, either to describe the machine (of which we were 

 shown a model by the inventor, in 1835), or to give an account of what took 

 place at the trial ; but we shall refer those who are interested in the subject 

 to the Morning Chronicle of June 22., in which they will find a copious account 

 of the experiment at Bolton-le-Moors, by Mr. Handley ; and to the same 

 journal of June 25., in which they will find a column of valuable remarks on 

 the important benefit likely to result from Mr. Heathcoat's invention; and 

 we shall conclude with some extracts from a paper, which has been privately 

 circulated, but not published, entitled "A brief Description of Mr. Heathcoat's 

 Patents for his Invention of new or improved Methods of Draining and Cul- 

 tivating Land ; and new or improved Machinery and Apparatus applicable 

 thereto; which Machinery and Apparatus maybe applied to divers other useful 

 Purposes." _ " 



After a brief description of the machine, and various remarks on its applica- 

 tion, occur the following paragraphs : — 



" That the steam-engine would, at no very distant day, supply the place of 

 animal labour in agriculture, and become as mighty an instrument in augment- 

 ing the productiveness of the soil, as it has proved in creating and economising 

 manufactures, in navigating the ocean, and in travelling on land, was many 

 years since predicted by Franklin — a prediction reiterated by Davy, and, 

 latterly, acknowledged and enforced, as a great desideratum in science, by 

 many distinguished agriculturists. The successful application of Mr. Heath- 

 coat's invention to the culture of bogs — the most repellent and obstinate of 

 waste lands — leaves no room to doubt of its applicability to soils already in 



