Five Years Progress of Steam Cultivation. 
373 
pendent implements. These are 5-tined cultivators, with tines 
that can be instantly set in or out of the ground. Each imple- 
ment in turn is alternately hauled in work toward the engine, 
and then pulled backwards out of work to its next starting point ; 
but each traverses only half the length of the field, one beginning 
where the other finishes its furrow, midway between the engine 
and an anchored pulley on the far headland. This arrangement 
(proposed b}- myself before the Society of Arts in 1858) enables 
the use of only a very slight anchorage, and a light rope around 
it, extending the length of the field, and connecting the two 
implements together ; seeing that the working strain is only ex- 
erted directly between the implements and the engine. This 
thin rope is taken up or let out for varying lengths of furrow, by 
a drum upon one of the implements ; and a self-acting brake 
upon the engine preserves the tightness of all the ropes, necessary 
for holding them off the land upon the rope-porters. Owing to 
the implements being single instead of double, they occupy less 
room and leave narrower headlands ; working up to the engine, 
they can dispense with signalling ; and there being neither 
windlass nor travelling anchorage, the whole tackle is removed 
from field to field by the locomotive engine, and set to work in a 
very short space of time. The grubbers make good work, and 
purchasers of the apparatus speak highly of its performances; 
but the system has not at present been adapted to turn-over 
ploughing. 
Mr. John Fowler, of 28, Cornhill, and of the Steam-Plough 
Works, Leeds, has three distinct forms of steam-cultivating 
machinery ; all based, however, upon the use of the moveable 
engine. In the simplest, an endless wire-rope is distended 
between a " clip-drum " under the boiler of a locomotive engine 
on one headland, and a pulley upon a self-travelling anchorage 
upon the other headland. The groove of the drum, being made 
of nipping pieces in pairs, pinches the half-turn of rope in exact 
proportion to the strain or draught, and may be set at pleasure to 
any degree of pressure ; so that the rope is held without slipping 
in the grip of a 10, 12, or 14-horse engine, working up to double 
its -nominal power. But though there is considerable wear of 
the clipping-pieces (which are very easily and cheaply renewed), 
it does not appear from experience that the rope itself suffers any 
more than it would from careful coiling upon a winding-drum. 
By means of a " taking-up " or " slack " gear upon the imple- 
ment, the pulling rope employs about one-sixth part of its strain 
in maintaining a considerable degree of tension in the back or 
return rope ; and by this self-acting contrivance, the entire length 
of rope is held up clear off the ground, riding over the friction- 
rollers of the rope-porters. The economy of motive power thus 
