to the Cultivation of the Land. 
181 
be raised or lowered when required, and motion is communicated 
to it by means of a band passing from a rigger on the engine 
crank-shaft to another on one end of the digger shaft. The 
machine was drawn forward by horses, and the steam-driven 
tiller cut away the earth and threw it backwards. In January, 
1856, Mr. Bethell stated at the Society of Arts, that, — 
" He had been working this machine for three years with various alterations. 
It dug like Parkes' steel fork, and left the ground in a perfect state of tilth 
after the separation : it threw the earth up into the air ; the earth falling first 
because the heaviest, and the weeds coming upon the surface. They had no 
difficulty in working about 4 or 5 acres a day with that machine. It dug 
down to the depth of 9 inches ; and farmers who had seen it working had 
stated that it did as much in one operation as would require two or three 
ploughings to'perform, besides scarifying, harrowing, &c. The estimated cost 
of it was about 9s. an acre ; whereas 23s. was stated to be the cost under the 
ordinary mode. The experimental engine was worked at a pressure of 45 lbs., 
but the one he was about to construct would work as high as 100 lbs. to 
the inch." 
Since then, namely in October, 1857, Mr. Bethell has further 
patented the attaching of a revolving forker behind a locomotive 
engine, having the Boydell rails upon its wheels. And certainly, 
the addition of endless rails or shoes of some kind, is indis- 
pensable for bearing up the weight of a ponderous locomotive- 
engine and its machinery, in order to prevent injury to the con- 
dition of the soil. 
In May, 1853, Mr. Robert Romaine of Peterborough, in 
Canada, patented a steam cultivator, consisting of a sort of cart 
on large broad-tired wheels, carrying an upright boiler and 
engine ; a lever frame extending behind and raised or lowered 
by an adjusting screw, supported the digging cylinder. This 
digger was constructed with a number of bars armed with picks, 
knives or teeth ; and was driven at a high velocity. But horses 
were employed to draw the machine " forward : an incongruous 
contrivance that failed to answer in the experiments made upon 
Mr. Mechi's farm. In August of the same year, Mr. Chandos 
Wren Hoskyns patented (for the sake of protecting the idea pro- 
pounded by him in 1851) the steam rasp with which his readers 
are familiar; and which I must describe for the sake of the prin- 
ciple involved, though it has never ajipeared practically before 
the public. The object of this invention is to accomplish at one 
process the due preparation of the soil, more especially clay soil, 
lor a seed bed : this result being obtained by a machine which, 
instead of lifting in mass the stratum of earth under cultivation, 
like the plough or spade, is so applied to the soil as to reduce it 
by abrasion to the required tilth or fineness. This abrasion is 
performed by a series of discs or wheels, fixed on a rotating axis 
actuated by steam power, the periphery of which discs are 
