THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



171 



fected by steam, which has " no muscle to weary, 

 no breast to decay." We have only to look at 

 the groups of implements and machines pro- 

 ceeding from the well known firms of Ransome, 

 Wedlake, Garrett, Crosskill, Hornsby, Bray, 

 &c; or to look through the lists and catalogues 

 of those manufacturers; the evidence of the 

 fact becomes then very apparent. Let us very 

 briefly glance at the matter. 



Here are the productions of Messrs. Clayton 

 and Shuttleworth of Lincoln, among which, a 

 three horse-power portable steam engine is con- 

 spicuous. This compact affair is shaped some- 

 thing like a locomotive; it weighs about a ton 

 and a half, and its provender consists of three 

 hundred weights of coal, and 270 gallons of 

 water per day of ten hours. With this moving 

 power, it will thresh out twenty quarters of 

 corn per day; and when it has done its work 

 in one barn or threshingfloor, a horse will easily 

 draw it to another. Similar engines are made 

 of four, five, six, seven, eight and nine horse- 

 power, all presenting this analogy — that the 

 number of horse-power produced is about equal 

 to the number of hundred weights of coal con- 

 sumed in a working day of ten hours — a con- 

 venient rule for estimating the efficiency of the 

 power. The larger of these portable steam- 

 engines require two horses to draw them from 

 place to place; but in return for this, they will 

 thresh out a larger quantity of corn per day, 

 and become applicable also to grinding, sowing, 

 pumping, and other operations necessary on a 

 large farm. The seventy horse engine is large 

 enough to be made available for a remarkable 

 system which has sprung up in some districts — 

 namely, the letting out of steam-power; a porta- 

 ble steam-engine travels about from farm to 

 farm, doing the threshing and sowing, and grind- 

 ing and pumping for each in succession — a sys- 

 tem susceptible of wonderful expansion. Then 

 there are fixed steam-engines for farm work, of 

 four to ten horse-power each. Another inge- 

 nious apparatus is a portable threshing machine. 

 This is not a steam-engine, but a capacious ve- 

 hicle on four wheels, having threshing mecha- 

 nism within, and pulleys and bands on the out- 

 side to enable it to be worked by a steam-en- 

 gine, either portable or fixed. The facilities 

 thus afforded are remarkable; for you may 

 either take the steam-engine to thresh, or bring 

 the corn to be threshed, according to the ar- 

 rangements of the farm. The corn is bundled 

 into the vehicle; the steam-power commences its 

 activity, and revolving arms proceed to thresh 

 out the grain with great rapidity. In one form 

 of the machine, the whole of the process of 

 threshing, straw- shaking, riddling, winnowing 

 and bolting, are performed by steam-power, and 



in their proper order. How there must be cer- 

 tain revolving arms, and certain revolving cylin- 

 ders, and certain wriggling or vibrating troughs, 

 will be evident to those who consider the nature 

 of these operations. Then there are straw- 

 shaking machines, and corn-grinding mills, and 

 bone- crushing mills, all worked by steam-power, 

 and all applicable to farm-labor. 



Here are Messrs. Dray's portable steam- 

 engines; and here Messrs. Hornsby's; and here 

 Messrs. Garrett's, and Messrs. Barret's, and 

 Messrs. Ransome's ; and so on. The relative 

 merits of each and the trade competition be- 

 tween them, we have nothing to dp with here. 

 The great point is to know that there are a 

 dozen firms or more manufacturing these pow- 

 erful aids to agriculture. Some excel in the 

 rapidity with which steam is got up; while 

 others excel in the amount of horse-power pro- 

 duced by the consumption of a given weight 

 of coal. 



The Royal Agricultural Society was mainly 

 instrumental in bringing forward the moveable 

 steam-engines for farms, in the interval between 

 1841 and 1851. Mr. Pusey, a great authority 

 on all these matters, has thus noticed the ad- 

 vantages of portable over fixed engines for 

 farm-work: "If a farm be a large one, and 

 especially if, as is often the case, it be of an 

 irregular shape, there is great waste of labor 

 for horses and men in bringing home all the 

 corn in the straw to one point, and in again 

 carrying out the dung to a distance of perhaps 

 two or three miles ; it is therefore common, and 

 should be general, to have a second outlying 

 yard; and this accommodation cannot be re- 

 conciled with a fixed engine. If the farm be 

 of a moderate size, it will hardly — and if small, 

 will certainly not — bear the expense of a fixed 

 engine; there would be waste of capital in mul- 

 tiplying fixed engines to be worked but a few 

 days in each year. It is now common, there- 

 fore, in some counties, for a man to invest a 

 small capital in a movable engine, and earn his 

 livelihood by letting it out to the farmer. But 

 there is a further advantage in these movable 

 engines, little, I believe, if at all known. Hi- 

 therto, corn has been threshed under cover in 

 barns; but with these engines, and the im- 

 proved threshing-machines, we can thresh the 

 rick in the open air at once as it stands. It 

 will be said : How can 3^011 thresh out of doors 

 on a wet day ? The answer is simple : neither 

 can you move the rick into your barn on a wet 

 day; and so rapid is the work of the new 

 threshing-machines, that it takes no more time 

 to thresh the corn than to move it." 



But steam does something more than this 

 for the farmer : it helps to make pipes for drain- 



