Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1856-09-04
Sf(isttlla}1tous.
PLOUGHING BY STEAM.

PLOUGHING BY STEAM.
Although efforts were made in England
some years ago to introduce ploughing by
steam power, the art is yet quite in its in
fancy. At the late agricultural exhibition
of the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng
land, at Chelmsford, experiments were made
which commanded good deal of attention
of three entirely different modes of accom-
plishiug the desirable object of applying to
the labours of tillage power which does
not itself consume the products Of agricul-
ture These experiments are thus described
in the report of the exhibition given in the
London Times of July l6.
The first was by Mr.. Boydell, by means of
an improvement on the steam plough, which
he exhibited last year. 1t is an engine wor-
ked by two six and half inch cylinders,
with a common portable eight.horse boiler,
and fy-whcel, mounted on four carriage
wheels. The wheels, ale fitted with the
"endless railway" enabling them to traverse
over any surface however rugged, to climb
activities, and to drag behind them an im-
mensc weight without losing their bite of
the ground. The engine usually works with
sixty pound pressure per square inch, and
can be worked up to twclvc-horse power
Its weight, with water and every. requisite
for duty, is nine tons but, nevertheless, it
can ascend incines back, turn in a small
area, and is steered by a pole, chain, and
wheel like those of steamboat, with the
greatest nicely. The inventor considers his
engine sufficiently powerful to draw say te..
ploughs in light land, at six inches depth,
with speed of two miles per hour. 1t has
dragged some implements Of very heavy
draught during the trials, and was not una
bic to pull forward Coleman's ploughing
machine. In attempt with the dynameter
attached to Biddcll's cultivator, the instru-
ment broke at forty hundred weight, the
draught of the cultivator as used being much
greater still. In plouehing hill.sides, the
engine is intended to 60 up hill empty, and,
in work downwards, so as to perform very
steep work indeed. One of the principal
advantages of this locomotive for culture is,
that no horses whatever are needed to help
it, inasmuch as it travels of itself from place
to place, taking coal and water, and costing
nothing beyond the wages of two men, in
addition to those with the implements the
wear and tear and interest of first cost, about
$3.50.
Mr.. Smith, of Woolston, Buckingham
shire, works his implements by means of a
common scven-horse portable engine and
stationary windlass, fixed at one corner of a
field. A couple three-quarter inch wire
ropes are led from the two drums on the
windlass in opposite directions round four
anchored pulleys, and meet at the implement,
thus passing all round the feld-two an
chors being fixed and two shifted from time
to time along each hcadland as the plough
ing proceeds The anchors are like large
four-toothed rakcs, and it requires man at
each end of the work to dig holes and shift
them forward. Mr. Smith uses cultivators
of a peculiar kind, taking about three feet
breadth at 4 time and he has an ingenious
and quick mode of turning them at the end
of the furrow. He is able to scarcity or
baulk- plough on an average four acres per
day of twelve hours. The expenses, inclu-
ding the labour Of six men coal, fetching
water, wear and tear (3G cents per acre.
and interest of capital, amount to S2 per
acre.
Mr.. Fowler has contriycd different ar
rangement. 4 portable doubled cylinder en-
gine, worked at high pressure, and driving
a capstan by short endless chain is station
ed half-walf down one side Of the field
From the two horizontal drums of the cap.
stan two wire ropes are led diagonally across
the field direct to the two ends of the work,
these passing around a couple of anchored
pullcys and meeting at the Implement
The anchorages deserve notice they consist
simply of low trucks or small wagons laden
with Garth and with short cutting discs for
wheels, which cut down into the land, and,
while presenting great resistance to sideland
pressure in the direction of the ploughing,
can be easily pulled forward along the head
land when required.
For common ploughins an implement is
used having eight ploughs fixed upon it
four in work at once, and the others pointed
in an opposite direction for performing the
return trip. For trench ploughing, ten or
fourteen inches deep, another implement is
used, taking twofurrows' width and two deep,
being, in fact, a modification of Cotgreave's
subsoil and trench plough for horse power.
The ploughing is one way work, but lands
or stretches can be readily ploughed by SIM
ply turning the implement end for end for
each half-land, and by shifting the anchor
ages accordingly we'll done, and the trench
ing implement was drawn with great steadi-
ness in ground through which ten horses
were required to pull it. The amount of
ploughing on land where three horses are
commonly yokcd in a plough capable of be-
ing done bya tcn-horse engine is about eight
acres per day of ten hours; and the expense
of working including four men and boy,