New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-02
MIR. Greeley's Steam PIow Letter.

In a letter to the Tribune Mr.. Greeley
gives an interesting description of his visit
to Magnolia plantation. We copy his de-
scription of the performance of the steam
plow:
| Though the season has been persistently
cool and rainy, SO that everything is back
ward, and the soil was too wet to be plowed
to advantage, we found ON our announced
arrival both sets of plowing machinery in
full operation, with none but negro field
hands near them, though an overseer rode
from field to field supervising their efforts
| Boys OF twelve to fourteen years, who could
not hold breaking-up mule plow, were
running engines as learners, at seventy-tive
cents each per day The ground was cane
| stubble, heavily ridged or hilled to counter
act excess of moisture, with the trash" of
last years crop lying between the rows and
constantly clogging and choking the plows,
often requiring the machinery to be stopped
| in order to clean them.
The subsoil-never disturbed till now
was glutinOus clay loom, compacted by
sixty years treading of heavy mule teams,
so wet that it came up unbroken, as it were
glue, and about as easy to pulverze as so
much leather. So obstinate is it that Mr.
Lawrence had reduced each gang of plows
to two, lest his engines should be stalled or
furrow sixteen inches wide and fully two
feet in average depth; had the surface been
level they would have averaged twenty-six
inches. They were drawn across the field
(576 feet faster than most men would like
to walk. Three men were required to keep
them in place and clear them of the choking
"trash," which l would have burned out Of
their way, though |, had / been planter,
would have preferred to have it buried as
oil
ments each set of machinery was blowing
from five to six acres per day-plOwing
them two feet deep, remember, and thus re-
levlng them OF the generally superabun-
dant moisture as shallow blowing, or even
ordinary sub-sOiling, never did and never
can. Mr.. Lawrence, upon land thus plowed,
makes an average of 1000 pounds per acre
of sugar where he formerly made but 800
pounds. And he regards himself as vet on
the threshold of steam cultivation.
And even this was not the best he had to
show us. In other fields, perhaps halt a
mile distant, other machines were cultivat-
ing cane by steam. l believe the like of
tins has not yet been done elsewhere on
earth. The rows OF cane are fully seven
feet apart; the plants are now fully foot in
average height. A locomotive engine stands
at either end of the field, moving forward
or backward by touch of the hand of the
negro boy standing upon it and looking out
for signals. The cultivator is composed of
five or six ordinary horse cultivators, en-
larged and fixed in frame, whereof the
half that has just stirred the earth to
depth Of two and width of five feet is
lifted clear of the ground on reaching the
engine which draws it, while its counter
part is brought down to its work by the
plow guider stepping upon it. At signal
the boy at the other end of the field OF
land starts his engine and begins to wind
up his wire rope and uncoil or play out
that of the drum beneath the opposite en-
gine, pulling the cultivatOrs through the
earth as they are guided nearer the row
that they were kept further from as they
passed in the opposite direction. Having
thus thoroughly pulverized the space be-
tween two rows, by traverslng it twice, the
engines move forward to the next space and
repeat the operation, and so on till nightfall.
Mr.. Lawrence assured me that one such
thorough working answers for the season,
whereas, while titled by mule power. every
cane-ield required working six times per
season at intervals of fifteen days. A set of
machinery and hands till about twelve
acres per day. l judged the cost of this
days work, including fuel and wear of ma
chinery, ranged from $25 to $50 This is
far below the cost of repeated workings by
mule power, while it is far more etficacious
The land pl0wed and titled by steam is far
dryer than the rest. Mr.. Lawrence con-
siders his thousand acres under tillage
worth $lO0 per acre more than they would
be but for steam culture. He will keep his
two sets of plowing machinery at work not
only throughout each day, when the earth
is not too sodden, but (by relays of hands)
throughout each night also, when the moon
serves.
Steam tillage of growing crops being a
nicer, more critical operation, will be con
fined to daylight. But the autumn is here,
the dry season; therefore most favorable to
plowing, and he realizes an immense ad-
vantage IN this. Throughout the cane
cutting months of October and November,
when all the mules on plantation are
overworked at hauling up cut cane from
the fields to the sugarhouse, so that plow-
ing with animals is impossible, he will have
his piowing machinery constantly at work,
doing him most excellent service IN pre-
pairing for next years crop.
~