Salt River herald., 1878-08-31
The Largest Flow in the World.

How vain is boasting : Here comes a railroad journal, the RaH- qray Age, and with victor's tone, voices this paragraph:
 The largest blow in the world, singularly enough, is one just built. not for large farmer" but for the Granger bete nOir, railway com plny. The Chicago, Milwaukee (; St Paul has ordered it to use in ditching for railway construction in Iowa, and it is to be drawn neither by horse, OK or mule, but by loco motive. The dimensions of this steam-pulled ditcher are given as follows. The share weighs 3S2 pounds, the mould board. lSO pounds; the beam, 900 pounds; the coulter and clasp, 1SO pounds; the clovis, 60 pounds; the standard, 134 pounds. The sizes of the principal parts are Beam l64 feet long, 10 inches vide and T. inches thick; land slide, 9 feet by 5x2 inches, standard, 40 inches by 7xl ] iuches; mould board, 5 feet by 26 inches; share 54 feet by 12 inches. Il will cut furrow 37 inches wide.
 This puny, one locomotive i'm plemcHt is then put forth as "the largest blow in the world" and the agriculture of the country seems to have kneeled in silent acquiescence in the railroads claim We have waited in the hope that California's prowess would not be needed to crush such a tiny upstart, but ii the rest of the country holds its peace, California does not. The fact is that California agriculture can so far overlie this moOted mon ster in the blow line, that if the Iowa plow should fall into the Cal ifornia furrow they would have to get lantern to find it with.
 A few years ago a blow was built on the Livermore ranch in Kern county, according to the design and under the supervision or Mr. W. II Souther, which, if it should meet this Iowa blow. it would serve it as a locomotive might a hand-car. It is called the Great Western" and these are its weights and measure ments; Beam, Is feet long, Is inches deep and 10 inches thick; landslide, 17 feet long, inches wide and ] inches thick; standard, 3 feet high; mold board, } feet long and 3 feet high. This blow weighs one ton and is swung, by q heavily ironed wooden arch. between two wheels eight feet in diameter and with tires six inches wide. The attaching of the body ot the blow to th;s arched axle of the wheels is accomplished by running two heavy lenders back from the arch. and fastening them to the back ends of the beam and mould board. A 15-foot lever runs from the mould board across the back end of the beam, and on this a man stands to adjust the blow as to depth of cut, etc. The "Great Wes- tern cuts a furrow four feet wide and three feet deep, and is drawn by so oxen, yOked to a wire cable one inch thick. This cable weighs LAO pounds.
 There follows the blow a A shap- ed scraper, drawn by chain from its apex by so mules. It is F feet wide and 3 feet high at the open end. The sides are heavy iron. This, following the blow. shoves the furrow out 10 feet from the place it is left by the blow.
 With the "Great Western" and its scraping follower, the Kern Is- land canal and many of its branches or sub-canals were built in one quar- ter the time that it could be done with any other machine now in use and for a much less sum of money
 Such are the facts in briet, for we have not aimed to describe the machinery in full. The lesson which our Chicago contemporary should draw is the beauty. of speaking with becoming modesty, and wher an Iowa railroad constructs a little cultivator to scratch along the side; of its tracks, do not again call i .'the largest blow in the world.'- Pdcifc Rural Press.