Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-09-29
dQlOrtrster Daily Spg.
THE STEAM PL0W,

The great desidcratum of the age is unques-
tionably practical steam plow 1t would
make the fortune OF the inventor the fortune
of the great West. We extract from letter
Ill the ST Louis Democrat under date of Sept.
Z, 1853, the following description of three va
rletes OF steam plows at the recent Illinois
Agricultural Fair at Freeport:
AS L write, Fawks's steam plow," comes
rushing, and whistling, and smoking, followed
by great crowd which surrounds it on every
side. 1t is huge machine, as large as the
largest railroad locomotive, though somewhat
wider, and, of course, very different in its de-
tailed arrangements. Though it looks like an
unwleldy monster, its engineer really las it
under very good control, and can make it run
backwards, forwards, or turn round as easily
as driver could manage two yoke of oxen
1t is, i'll short, land locomotive made to run
about almost anywhere; when applied to its
legitimate purpose, a gang of eight plows, each
fourteen inches in width, is attached, which
1t draws through the ground, at the usual
depths of blowing, with all apparent ease, plow-
ing whole "land' at one turrow. Its inven-
tor claims that it is capable of blowing four
acres per hour, at less than one-third the usual
cost Two men are required to operate it. BY
slight change of gearing it may be used as a
stationary engine.
There is another steam pillow on exhibition,
invented by Van Doren & Glover, of Chicago
and operating on an entirely different principle
from Fawks's. Upon strong axle, between
two large driving wheels, very much like the
driving wheel of an ordinary reaper, stands
an upright boiler some ten feet high by two
IN diameter. The engine is horizontal, paral-
lei and on level with the axle, and connected
with the driving wheels by suitable gearing
Quite large wooden frame surrounds the ma
chine, and at the back end, attached to four
rotating discs, are strong, iron blades, shaped
and working almost exactly like the blades of
propeller digging up the ground to the re-
CURED depth. Its inventors say it will dig up
live acres of ground per day, with its present
power, five horse.) 1t has the advantage of
pulverizing the soil very finely. Price, $500.
There is still another machine on exhibition,
akin to the steam pillow, which may be appro-
priately mentioned in this connection 1t is a
rotary spadmg machine, of very simple con-
structlon, being lot of spade-ke blades, fas-
tened to the periphery of an iron wheel some
four feet in diameter, the spades being pressed
into the ground by the weight of the machine,
as the wheel revolves. This spade wheel ro-
tates within an iron rim (also rotating) which
has slips or apertures in it, its axis being set
higher than that of the former, so that as the
spades revolye they protrude through the
apertures, where they reach the ground while
they are entirely drawn within the rim, where
they reach the top--the rim thus effectually
clearing the spades of all dirt that might adj
here to them.
These1 machines represent three entirely
different principles which it sought to apply
to machine ploughing. All Of them as at pre-
sent embodied, have defects-all of them have
their peculiar advantages. None of them are
practical enough to come into general use
without much modification and Improvement
hot tb,
tive talent of the country has grapped the
steam pillow problem in earnest, and the public
may confidently expect its solution before a
great while.