The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1873-08-28
5arm, 8ouse anb &arnen.
FLOWING BY STEAM.

|
We find the following description of
a new invention of great interest to
farmers in a letter to the Boston Adver-
tiser. The experiments were made on
the farm of Mr.. David Landreth, the
we'll known scotsman, near Bristol, Penn
sylvania
Every toil-worn inventor knows how
hard it is to find good chance to try
his machine, especially if large ona, and
one which requires the cooperation of
other men. Mr.. Williamson, the Ameri-
can patentee of the Thomson traction
engine, learned this to his cost, and tried
long and fruitlessly to find place to ex-
pertinent in steam blowing, until he met
Mr. Landreth, who was not only ready
to believe in and help forward a good in
vention, but could open fields for steam
cui;lre that would fully test the power
and value Of any machine. 1t will not
consume space describing the machine
itself; for that refer to the pa.entee,
D. D. Williamson, No. 80 Broadway,
New York. The peculiarly of the en-
CINE is that it has wide band of India
rubber. six inches thick, for the tire of the
wheels. One engine is the rubber In a
continuous ring, the other in sections.
The rubber is faced with kind of clean
armor. which keeps it from contact with
and wear on the earth, but the India
rubber spreads under the weight of the
engine, and the face or rim of the wheel
seems to open out like the paw of cat
or foot of an elephant; and although
the machine weighs seven tons, its two
wheels do not press sod ground more
than an inch deep, marking its passage
over fallow ground by patch fourteen
inches wide and an inch and half deep.
There is third wheel Ike velocipede
which turns the engine, and it can turn
round and round 10 it's own length.
making a perfect circle not more than
fifteen feet in diameter. Two wagons
we're attached to the engine, and, loaded |
with 80 people. started on a tour round |
Mr.. Landreth's farm, sometimes on the |
road, sometimes in fields, turning the |
sharpest corners with ease. We were
shown fields of ten and twenty acres |
plowed with the engine, at cost of S |
per acre, and ten acres per day. After |
we returned to the house gang pillow
was attached to the engine, and we start |
ed for an old grass field covered with
strong sod. The pillow had six mold |
boards, or, as it were, six separate plows |
in one; the machine started at once.
and drew the plows up and down the
field, over some steep grades, turning
furrow bed seven feet wide, fourteen |
inch burrows, seven inches deep, and |
moved as fast as man could walk. 1t |
turned on the headlands in thirty seconds,
and whether going up or down hill it
could be controlled, regulated, slowed. |
or fastened at will. One ofthese plows.
sold to Western railroad, was put for /
a first trial into Minnesota prairie with
an extremely hard, rooty sod. and was
driven, as its first test, without stopping,
one mile in straight lima. curling over
unbroken burrows thirty and forty feet |
long. The burrows, as they follow the
pillow, break Ike the toam-crests OF waves
on the coast.
Thus you see the point I made at the
beginning of my story is illustrated at
the end-ten acres can be plowed Gay
at dollar an acre. / have said nothing
of the value of the machine for general
traction. The same engine can haul
string of wagons to gravel bank, load
them with steam shovel, take them out
to be dumped, pillow. NOW, and reap,
thrash. drive plles-in short, do all
miscellaneous work, and [ hope will soon
be SO improved as to do general house
work.