The Evolution of Agricultural Implements. 57 
stationed one at each headland, between which the plough is 
drawn back and forth by means of a steel-wire rope. 
When only one engine is employed, “the self-moving 
anchor ” offers the best substitute for the double-engine plan. 
Under this system the plough is hauled backwards and forwards 
between a self-moving winding-engine and a so-called “ anchor,” 
which consists of a strong wrought-iron framework, supporting 
a horizontal sheave, around which the tractiv^e rope passes on 
its way to and from the winding-engine. This framework rolls 
on four thin discs, which, while acting the part of wheels, 
sink deeply into the ground and provide the necessary resistance 
against the pull of the rope. After each bout, the tractive rope 
hauls the anchor automatically along the headland far enough 
to trace a second set of furrows, which done, the anchor is itself 
secured fore and aft by tines, and these again are lifted auto- 
matically out of the ground by every approach of the plough. 
A third plan of ploughing is known as the “ roundabout 
system,” and in this, as the name implies, the tractive rope, 
supported on horizontal sheaves fitted with suitable anchors, 
makes a four-square or other convenient circuit of the field. 
An ordinary farm engine, giving motion to a pair of winding 
drums, is used for the purpose of hauling the rope to which the 
plough is attached, at the side of the circuit most distant from 
the engine. After every bout, the pair of anchors between 
which the plough is thus caused to travel are moved by hand, 
and so, step by step, the field is ploughed. 
Fisken’s clever plan of transmitting the power required to 
haul the plough by means of a light rope running at a high 
velocity, forms a fourth plan of steam tillage, but it has never 
come into extended use. 
Digging Machines : — There is no question but that the 
introduction of steam-ploughing proper was long retarded by 
the firm hold which the idea of “ rotary ” cultivation had taken 
on the public mind, thanks, in a great measure, to the clever 
writings of Mr. Wren Hoskyns. At the time when the use of 
tractive ropes was first suggested, Eomaine, Usher, Boy dell, and 
others were trying hard to prove that steam tillage should be 
effected by self-moving engines, drawing either ploughs or 
revolving cultivators behind them, and large sums of money were 
spent in demonstrating the impracticability of this plan before 
agricultural engineers settled down to the conviction that they 
must seek the solution of the steam-tillage problem in haulage. 
Of the many horse-power diggers which have at various 
times been introduced as rivals of the plough there is no need 
to speak, for they have all failed. But that “digging” has 
