368 
Five Years' Progress of Steam Cultivation. 
device is good, and tlie cost low : and the liook is adapted to any 
apparatus not fitted with ''taking-up gear "' upon the implement. 
• Coming now to distinct systems of haulage, I find entered in 
the Catalogue, but not present in the Show-vard, the apparatus of 
Mr. W. Fibken, of Stamfordham, Northumberland. The pecu- 
liarity in the invention (which has undergone great modifications 
since its early appearance in Scotland in 1852, and its exhibition 
at Carlisle in 1855), consists in conveying the power froih a 
stationary engine by means of hemp-rope running at a high 
velocity. At first the windlass, with ploughs attached, worked 
its way to and fro by coiling or by gripping a fixed and im- 
movable wire-rope ; then the implement was made to travel by 
means of a drum armed with cutting blades that laid hold of the 
ground ; and lastly, this has been abandoned for the present plan 
of two self-moving anchor-windlasses, one on each headland, 
alternately coiling a single wire-rope which pulls the plough, — the 
endless hemp cord mounted upon porters, along one headland and 
across the field alongside the furrow, transmitting power and 
motion to the two windlasses. The price of the apparatus is 
marked excessively low ; but now that we have learned to cany 
wire-rope clear off the land, and thus to take power to almost 
unlimited distances with very little Maste in friction, I do not 
perceive what special advantages could be gained by the present 
form of this invention. 
The apparatus of Mr. W. Smith, of Woolston, Bletchley, 
Bucks, is so well known that a description would be superfluous ; 
and only a few minor alterations appeared in the tackle at W or- 
cester. The double-cylinder 10-horse ordinary portable engine 
had an additional band-wheel, formed in one piece with the fly- 
wheel, giving a choice of two speeds for lighter or harder work. 
The stationary four-wheeled windlass, with a couple of coiling 
drums : the claw-anchors let into the ground by digging holes ; 
and the simple, strong, light, three-tined and five-tined cultivators, 
turned round at the ends of the work bv the action of the ropes, 
present no apparent novelty in construction. The pulleys or 
snatch-blocks, however (four, five, or even six in number, accord- 
ing to the shape of the field), have been made with a deeper and 
more durable centre-boss rotating upon a longer pin ; and the 
rope-porters standing upon curved wood rockers cannot tumble 
over, and are easily moved. In addition to the two grubbers of 
different sizes, Mr. Smith showed his combined cultivator and 
corn-drill (with grubbing tines and seed-coulters on one lever 
frame), which has been much lightened, improved, and cheapened 
in price since last year. This machine, thoroughly tested in 
extensive practice, enables the farmer to make a seed-bed out of 
whole ground, and sow it at one operation ; with an admirable 
