Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-05-25
PLOUGHING BY STEAM.

| A letter IN the Tribune from MT. 1reeiey
gives an interesting account of operations by
steam which he recently witnessed ON plan
tation in Louisiana. Ploughing is done by steam
and the cane is cultivated by the same power
The proprietor was Mr.. Lawrence, cion
of New York family, an inventor Of plough
and lover of agriculture. The most of his
arabic fields had been cultivated sixty or
seventy years, and with only a ploughing Of
eight to ten inches in depth were nearly ex-
hausted. Mr.. Lawrence determined to plough
deeper and get better crop, and this IS the
way he does it:
Mr. Lawrence was accustomed to use teams
of eight mules to pillow, and was then able to
pulyerise but eight to ten inches in depth.
Had he not been an experienced and capable
plowman, constantly in the field and often be-
tween the pillow handles, he could not have
got below six inches, even by the aid of all
the persuasives known to plantation manage
ment. OF course, his soil, annually drawn upon
by such exhausting crops as cane and corn,
grew gradually less productive; and he was
among the earliest to realize the necessity of
bringing steam to the aid of agriculture. He
had means and credit; he thoroughly under
stood his business and its needs he visited
Europe and scrutinized the working of various
steam plows; and he concluded that Fowler's
machinery, whereof two powerful engines
stand at each side of the field and draw the
plows back and forth by winding up and un-
winding wire ropes around their respective
drums, was the only device adapted to this
soft, heavy, easily compacted soil. He bought
successfully two sets of these machines, the
second much heavier and more powerful than
he first hn ia sir rfr .hnrs
engines, supplied on his resolute demand,
though none SO powerful had ever been con-
structed for blowing till he ordered them.
When the Fowlers have done their best for
him, he takes the machines into his own shops
and directs such notifications as his own eX
perience has suggested. He is confident that
we shall soon require sixty horse engines, and
that by their aid dry prairie may be plowed
two feet deep at the rate of at least fifty acres
per day.
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, yet we found, on our unan-
nounced arrival, both sets of blowing ma
chinery in full operation, with none but ne
gro tield-hands near them, though an overseer
rode from field to field experimenting their eff
forts. Boys of II to II years, who could not
hold breaking-up mule pillow, were running
engines, as learners, at wages of 10 cents each
per day. The ground was cane stubble,
heavily ridged or billed, TO counteract the ex-
cess of moisture, with the trash" of last
years crop lying between the rows and con-
stantly clogging and choking the plows, often
requiring the machinery TO be stopped, in or
der to clear them. The subsoil-never dis !
turbed till now-was glutinous clay loan,
compacted by sixty years treading of heavy
mule teams, so wet that it came up unbroken,
as if it were glue, and about as easy to pull
verize as so much sole-leather. So obstinate
is it that Mr.. Lawrence had reduced each
gang of plows to two, lest his engines should
be stalled, or his wire ropes broken. These
two each cut a 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 SIC 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 would have burned
out of the way, though had been plan
ter, l would Nave preferred to have it buried,
as they buried it. Against all these imped-
ments, each set of machinery was blowing
from five to six acres per day-plowing them
two feet deep, remember, and thus relieving
them of the generally superintendent moist
ure, as shallow blowing, OF even ordinary
subsoiling, never did and never can. Mr..
Lawrence, upon land thus plowed, makes an
average of 1000 pounds per acre of sugar,
where be formerly made but 500 pounds.
And he regards himself, as yet, upon the
threshold of Steam Cultivation.