The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-07-06
FARM MACHINERY.
Flowing and Cultivating by Steam.

Horace Greeley, in recent letter from the
South, describes visit to plantation fifty
miles below New Orleans, where the manu-
iacture of sugar is speciality. One thousand
acres are cultivated. Fowler's blowing ma
chinery is used, imported from England.
The plows are drawn across the field by
two thirty-horse steam engines, provided
with drums, on which the wire ropes that
operate the plows are wound. One engine
is placed on each side of the field, and the
drums alternately wind and unwind the
rope, drawing the plows back and forth be-
tween the engines.
1.-The ground, writes Mr.. Greeley, "was
cane stubble, heavily ridged or billed to
counteract excess Of moisture, with the
trash of last years crop lying between
the rows, and constantly clogging and chol-
ing the plowS, often requiring the machine
ry to be stopped in order to clear them.-
The subsoil--never disturbed till now-was
a glutinous clay loan, compacted by sixty
years treading of heavy mule teams, so wet
that it came up mbroken, as if il were
glue, and about as easy to pulvcrize 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 fulrow 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 would have burned out Of
the way, though |, had been a planter.
would have preferred to have it buried, as
they buried it.. Against all these impede
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 s,perabun-
dant moisture, as shallow blowing, or even
ordinary. subsoilng, never did and never
can. Mr.. Lawrence, upon land thus
plowed, makes an average of 2 900 pounds
per acre Of sugar, where he formerly made
but 500 pounds. And he regards himself
as yet ON the threshold of steam cultiva-
ton.
And even this was not the best he had
to show us. In other fields, perhaps half a
mile distant, other machines were cultivate
ing cane by steam. | believe the like of
. this has not yet been done elsewhere on
earth. The rows of cane are fully seven
feet part the plants 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 cult
vator is composed of five or six ordinary
horse cultivators, enlarged and fixed in
frame, whereof the half that has Just stirred
the earth to a depth of two and width
OF five feet is lifted clear of the ground
on reaching the engine that draws it,
while its counterpart is brought down to its
work by the pillow gllider stepping upon it.
At signal, the boy at the other end of the
field, or land, starts his engine, and begins
to unwind his wire rope, and uncoil or pay
out that Of the drum beneath the opposite
engine, 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 pull
yerized the space between two rows, by
travessng it twice, the engines move for
ward to the next space and repeat the ope-
ration and so on till nightfall. Mr.. Law
renee assured me that one such thorough
working answers for the season
whereas, while titled by mule pow
er, every cane field required working
SIX times per season, at intervals of fifteen
days. A set of machinery and hands tills
about twelve acres per day. / Judge the
cost of this days work, including fuel and
wear of machinery, ranges from $25 to $50.
This IS far below the cost of repeated work
mgs by mule power, while it is far more ef-
ticacious. The land plowed and TILED by
steam is far dryer than the rest. Mr.. Law
renee considers his thousand acres under
tillage worth 800 per acre more than they
would be but for steam culture. He will
keep his two sets of blowing 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 and more critical ope-
ration, will be confined to daylight.
81 close with an avowal of my confident
belief, that Mr.. Eflingham Lawrence has
rendered an immense service to American
agriculture, especially that of the prairie
States, by demonstrating the benefits, not
merely Of steam blowing, but of suisse
quent steam tillage, and that the day is not
remote wherein the 'barrens' of Long Is
land and New Jersey, the rich intervaies of
the Connecticut and Snsquehanna will be
profitably plowcd and TILED, to a depth of
twenty-four to thirty inches. by steam
power, and chat far larger and stlrer crops
than those of the past will therelrom be re-
alized.o