The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-16 00:00:00

A NEW AMERICAN STEAM PLOTIGII.

A new steam plough, the invention of a Mr. J.
Fawkes, recently made a successful trial at Albany.
We take the following description of the implement
from the Country Gentleman, an agricultural paper
published in that part of the United States :
" The body of the engine consists of one horizon-
tal quadrangular frame of iron, about 12 feet long
by 8 wide, which rests upon the axles of a roller.
This roller, which is six feet in diameter,.and six
feet long, is the driving wheel of the engine. In
front of the roller, and bolted within the frame, is
the boiler, which is upright, surmounted by a dome
and pipe, and so constructed that steam may be got
up in 15 minutes. Thirty minutes, however, are
usually required. Over and behind the driving
roller 1:s the water tank, which is of the entire width
of the engine frame, contains 12 barrels sufficient
to supply the boiler for fivehours, and is so situated
that when it and the boiler are full, they counter-
balance each other upon the roller. Attached to the
frame in front of the boiler, and tapering forward
and slightly upward, like the bow of a boat, is a
sheet-iron receptacle for coal. Here is also a seat for
the fireman, the whole bow resting on two guide
wheels 15 inches tread, and 4 feet diameter. Bolted

to the under side of the frame, as frequently seen
in locomotives, arid on each side of the upright
boiler, are the cylinders, each 9-inch diameter, and
15-inch stroke, the piston rods of which are so geared
to the crank of the roller that it revolves once for
every six strokes of the piston. Great regularity of
motion, increase of motive power, and control of the
movement of the engine backwards and forwards,
are secured by this arrangement, while the guide
wheels, which `may be turned at pleasure, by a steer-
ing wheel in charge of the engineer, almost at right
angles, under the'bow of the machine, permit it to
turn in a circle, the radius of which is equal to the
length of the engine, 18 feet. By a small indepen-
dent ' donkey engine,' which is placed between the
tank and the boiler, the latter may be filled from the
former, or the tank itself be through a hose supplied
from a well or brook. Into the beams, projecting
foom the rear of the engine pulleys are let, over
which chains pass, whereby a gang of eight 14-inch
prairie ploughs is suspended; a wheel on the beam
of each plough regulates, as usual, the depth of the
furrow, and the whole gang may be raised or
lowered by a lever within the reach of the .fireman,
who, with the engineer, constitute the entire force
needed to work the engine and ploughs."
Then follows a brief description of a trial of the
plough :
" The machine was tested on timothy sod, which
had not been ploughed for seven years. At a given
signal from the whistle, the fireman lowered the
ploughs to the ground, which, having entered, they
were drawn forward up an incline of about seven de-
grees. They were lifted promptly at the margin of the
land appropriated to the trial, the machine turning
easily; again they were lowered, and the ploughing
resumed, in as short a time as they could have done
with a single plough and a parr of horses. The
mean rate of speed was four miles an hour, and the
united furrows were nine feet four inches wide ; a
strip four miles long, nine feet four inches wide,
equals 197,120 square feet, which, divided by the
number of feet in an acre, gives almost exactly
4 3-10th acres per hour.
" Allowing for the time lost in turning, and all
other necessary delays, the engine proved itself fully
capable of ploughing 30 acres a day, the amount of
fuel required being, according to the engineer, a
half-ton of coal, or the equivalent in wood. The
plough, was run over gullies and abrupt elevations,
and stood every test in the most satisfactory man-
ner. Its performance proved its perfect adaptedness
to prairie cultivation and to the tillage of large
fields. By a very simple arrangement the roller,
which is composed of wooden staves bolted to open
iron-heads, may be lifted from the ground, geared,
directly to the piston-rod. It thus becomes a rapidly
revolving drum, over which a band is passed, and
the whole converted into a farm engine for driving
saws, thrashing machines, sugar and grain mills, &c.
This ready conversion of a ploughing locomotive
into a farm engine multiplies vastly the uses of the
machine.

"To conclude : The American machine will
easily and regularly plough three acres an hour,
with the aid of two men. Fowlet's English prize
machine may be made to plough three-fifths of an
acre an hour, with the attendance of five men
and a boy—that is to say, Fawkes with two men
will plough five acres in the same time that Fow-
ler, with five men and a boy, will plough one. That
this is the " most economical" of English machines is
attested by the highest authority ;* but we guess
that an American farmer would place a plough and
a pair of horses each in the hands of "five men and
a boy," and beat Mr. Fowler long before sunset.
Let, then, the record stand, that at the present time
the only economical and practical application of
steam tillage is of American invention.",

The writer refers to the decision of the juges. at Warwick,

EX-PRESIDENT PIERCE.

Gen. Pierce arrived at Boston, U.S., on the 27th
ult. in the steamer America from Liverpool. On
the same evening he was waited upon at the Tre-
mont House by the Democratic Ward. and City
Committee, attended by the brigade band, and a
serenade f welcome was given him. After the
band had played several airs, Mr. Pierce appeared
at the window, and was received with loud cheers
by the large crowd of citizens assembled in front of
the hotel. He was introduced by Mr. Francis J.
Parker in a few appropriate remarks, and addressed
the large audience briefly as follows :
" I thank you cordially, gentlemen, for the
manifestation of kindness which this tall im-
plies. After an absence from our shores much
more protracted than I had anticipated when
I left them, I found a degree of satis-
faction in again planting my foot upon New Eng-
land soil quite unexpected, often and earnestly as
my heart has yearned for home. Even in these
past two years how many changes have occurred ;
some of them national in character, and bearing
sorrow and profound sense of loss throughout the
land. The death of your neighbour and friend—
the statesman, orator, and patriot, whose fame was
not limited to his own country—reached me on the
other side of the Atlantic but a few days previous
to my embarkation. With all my sympathy with
those bound to him by the dearest of earthly ties,
whose loss is irreparable, with all my homage for
his genius, that which I felt stirring at my heart
with a warmer and deeper feeling than all beside
—that which will cause his memory to be cherished
by you, as American citizens, beyond any mere in-
tellectual superiority, is the fact that his patriotism
was as steady, broad and glowing, as his eloquence
was brilliant and his learning varied and profound.
I do not of course mean to speak the language of
eulogy, but I cannot consent to stand before you,
and the pleasure which I experience in your kind
greeting, and in being thus reminded that I have
a place in your personal regard which neither time
nor absence are likely to shake, and seem for a
moment to forget the great loss which you
especially, and which the nation, as a whole, has
sustained in the death of Mr. Choate. You do not,
my friends, expect anything like a speech from
me to-night, and if you did, I cannot fittingly re-
spond to that expectation. You will be glad to know
that the great object of my voyage to Madeira and
thence to Southern Europe has been partially
realised. For myself, Z have during my absence
found much to enjoy, and I will add, much to ad-
mire ; but after all, I have come back more tho-
roughly convinced than ever before of the wisdom,
strength, and durability of those institutions under
which we live, and of the constitution which up-
holds them. We have no questions of the balance
of power' to continually agitate and disturb us. We
need not give ourselves one moment's uneasiness
about armaments by sea or by land on the part of
any foreign power. Whether these foreign arma-
ments be increased or diminished—whether they be
strong or weak—is to us, as a nation, a matter of
indifference. With the great barrier of the At-
lantic rolling between us and them, so long as we
are true to ourselves, true to our theory,l true to
our honour and dignity, they will have no motive,
and, let me add, I believe they will have no incli-
nation to interfere, even if they had the mate-
rial might, with our onward march of peaceful
prosperity. We have only to cultivate the peerless
inheritance which, through the interposition and
blessing of God, has descended to us ; to recognise
and gratefully acknowledge His goodness ; to obey
the law, and, first of all, the fundamental law of
the land, and we cannot fail to secure an unchecked
career of pervading, united prosperity and happi-
ness. I can express no better wish for you, and for
my country, than that these may be your and her
possession. Renewing to you, gentlemen, my grate-
ful acknowledgments, I bid you good night."
At the conclusion of his speech, which was
warmly received, and until a late hour, a good num-
ber of the friends of Gen. Pierce waited upon him
to congratulate him upon his return to his native
land.

HER MAJESTY'S VISIT TO LOCH KATRINE.—
GLASGOW, Wednesday.—Yesterday a deputation, consist-
ing of Mr. Hannan, the chairman of the Glasgow Loch
Katrine Waterworks, and Mr. Bateman, the engineer, pro-
ceeded to Balmoral, and presented a respectful request, in
the name of the Lord Provost, magistrates, and council of
Glasgow, to the effect that her Majesty would inaugurate
by her•presence the opening of the new supply of water
from Loch Katrine to Glasgow, the works for which are
now•on the verge of completion. Her Majesty complied in
a very gracious manner, and it has been arranged that she
will proceed from Edinburgh to Loch Katrine on the 14th
of October, and open the sluice by which the first stream
of this magnificent store of water will ever afterwards sup-
ply the city of Glasgow,