The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1868-07-09
THE STEAM PLOUGH.
Revolution i'm Crop Farming---Ag-
Agricultural Products to be Doubled.

The commissioner of Agriculture, Gen
eral Capron, ever alive to the interests
OF the great source of our national wealth,
Is about to take another step, which, if
successful, with give new impetus to
agricultural pursuits This is the intro
ductlon into general use of the steam
plough. In England, even in Egypt, this
plough Is no longer an experiment. In
the former country they have been used
With most complete success, one manu-
featuring firm alone having found a
market for more than twelve hundred.
In the latter country the Viceroy has
over two hundred in use every season on
the Nile, where he plants three hundred
thousand acres with cotton, rice and
sugar. In this country only two Of these
ploughs have been introduced One is
on the .Magnolia" sugar plantation, Just
below New Orleans, and the other in the
state of Illinois.
The great advantage of the steam
plough is that the soil can be thoroughly
stirred up to a depth of from fifteen to
eighteen inches at about the same cost AS
Is now done with other ploughs from three
to seven inches. The expense Of blowing
to the ordinary depth is OF course much
less than by the old way. The impor-
lance of this change will be apparent
when we assert what every intelligent
farmer admits that the great need IN
most parts of this country is deep cult
walton" On the hot burning lands of
buckingham, England, to prevent their
crops suffering from drought, the farmers
spade to the depth of from twenty to
thirty inches. By this means the crops
are not affected injuriously in seasons of
drought, because the earth is stirred up
to depth never reached by the heated
| atmosphere, and the crops are supplied
with moisture by evaporation The sand
barrens throughout the country, number
| ing millions of acres, could be made to
| blossom as the rose" by deep cultiva-
| ton. The difficulty heretofore has been
| that no plough could make deep enough
| furrow. This difficulty can be surmount-
ed by the steam plough; but under ex-
listing laws, with duty of about thirty
| five per cent, persons engaged in agricul-
tural pursuits cannot afford to import
them, and the commissioner has set him
self at work to induce Congress to sus-
pend or repeal this duty until such time
as the steam plough can become so pop
uiarlzed by general use that the demand
VII hdlldH tlcli bClHS uStuuidCGuicu III
this country.
Those now in this country cost in Eng
land fifteen hundred pounds each. They
have l4-horse power, double cylinder
traction locomotive engines, with road
wheels % isches in width, and weighs
ten tons the total expense of running
makes the cost of ploughing an acre
about So 80.
In England many of these ploughs are
owned by stock companies; and are sent
| from one farm to another, somewhat at
ter the way of threshing and cutting
machines in portions of this country.
That they can be used successfully has
been fully tested on the plantation above
mentioned. If successful on the lower
Mississippi, where the soil is almost as
stiff as India rubber, some idea may be
formed of the profit with which they car
| be used on the vast sayannas of the West
and all light soils, where one plough could
do the work of thirty horses, and break
up, at twice the usual depth, from fifteer
to twenty acres per day. The revolution
this system of blowing, when once in
general use, would create in farming, car
easily be torseen. 1t would at least dou
BILE the grain and root products of the
country, lessen the cost OF what is raiseC
and enable US to double our shipments tt
foreign countries, a contamination de
voutly to be wished Washington CAro
nicle.