636 = 370 
Practical Agriculture. 
Simple 
arrangement 
for food- 
preparing 
machinery. 
Steam ploughs 
and cultiva- 
tors. 
The Fisken 
system. 
The dressed grain from the threshing-machine is delivered int 
scales and weighed ready for market ; the straw is delivered b 
the rotary shakers on to the floor above, and the chaff into 
separate compartment under the straw-shakers. In an apar 
ment adjoining the threshing-machine is a small roller metal mil 
for bruising oats and linseed, united with a triangular-toothe 
bean-cutter ; also a pair of 3-feet French mill-stones, fitted wit 
dressing apparatus, a pair of 4-feet Derby stones, a blower, an 
an elevator for raising the meal to the floor above. In the roc 
chamber are an oilcake breaker and a double-action Gardner 
turnip-cutter ; while a chaff-cutter is fixed on the floor over thi 
The second line of shafting drives a saw-bench, fitted wit 
boring augers, and also a double-acting pump. Adjoinin 
the boiler-house is a kiln for drying grain ; the fire-door bein 
arranged opposite that of the boiler, so that one engine-drive 
can attend to both. 
A simple and convenient plan for food-preparing machinei 
is to erect a floor or staging at one end of a barn, placing tl: 
chaff-cutter and corn- and cake-crushers on this floor, with tl 
pulping and slicing-machines on the ground-floor ; and a 
the machines may be driven simultaneously by setting dow 
a portable engine outside the barn, or one or two together by 
small semi-fixed engine, or, one at a time, by a pair of hor3( 
working a horse-gear out-of-doors with a spindle passing throug 
the barn wall. All three methods are to be found extensive! 
adopted ; horse-gears for chaff-cutting, pulping, and caki 
breaking being the most common. 
Steam Ploughs and Cultivators. — Of that type of steam-tillin 
machine foreshadowed by the genius of the late Mr. C. Wrc 
Hoskyns, in his ' Chronicles of a Clay Farm,' and embodied i 
experimental apparatus by Mr. Romaine and other inventors, i 
which a digging cylinder is driven in connection with a slowl 
travelling locomotive engine, no practical example remains 
the present time ; though Mr. Darby, in the neighbourhood ■ 
Chelmsford, has just introduced an engine which, with its hor 
zontal boiler, slowly advances in a broadside direction, and I 
spades or forks digs a stripe of many feet breadth as it proceed 
Neither is there anything but experimental use made of tractioi 
engines for hauling ploughs or other implements similar to tho 
drawn by horses. 
The system of working tillage implements by wire rope 
connection with a rapidly driven Manilla rope mounted up( 
high porters with friction-wheels, as introduced by Mr. Fiskc 
has been adopted by a considerable number of farmers, ai 
also by persons who execute ploughing and cultivating by coi 
