An IMPROVED METHOD OF PROPELLING AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS
Year: 1865

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Virgile Poitevin, of the Town of Saint Denis, near
Paris, in the Empire of France, Farmer, for the Invention of "An
IMPROVED METHOD OF PROPELLING AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS."
Sealed the 1st December 1865, and dated the 15th June 1865.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Virgile Poitevin at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 15th June 1865.
I, VIRGILE POITEVIN, of the Town of Saint Denis, near Paris, in the
Empire of France, Farmer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PROPELLING AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS," to be
as follows:-
The Invention consists in propelling forward and backwards ploughs, harrows,
or other agricultural instruments of the same kind, by means of a moveable
steam engine which remains always on the same side of the field. This result is
obtained by the action of a chain, rope, or strap running on a pulley which is
carried by the main shaft of the steam engine, the one end of the chain or rope
being attached to the frame of the plough, and the other end to the periphery of
a drum carried by the frame of the said plough where it can rotate. The
plough being pulled by the rope or chain moves forward, which motion causes

page_text: its wheels to rotate, and this rotary motion is communicated to the drum by a
combination of pulleys carried by the axletrees and axle of the drum, the said
pulleys actuate each other by means of endless belts or chains, in such way
that the plough moves forwards or back by the winding up of the chain or
rope on the drum, or its unwinding from it according to the right or left
motion of the steam engine.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Virgile Poitevin in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 14th
December 1865.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, VIRGILE
POITEVIN, of the Town of Saint Denis, near Paris, in the Empire of France,
Farmer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fifteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, in the twenty-eighth year of Her reign;
did, for, Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Virgile Poitevin, Her special licence that I, the said Virgile Poitevin, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Virgile
Poitevin, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agreé
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the
term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF
PROPELLING AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Virgile Poitevin, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and
seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said
Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause
the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that 1, the said Virgile Poitevin, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the Sheet of Drawing hereunto annexed;
and forming part of this my Specification, and to the figures and letters
of reference placed thereon.
L
My Invention consists in propelling forward and backward by mechanical

page_text: means all the implements of husbandry necessary to the cultivation of cereals,
plants for fodder, and leguminous or other plants, and that by the aid of any
motor (usually a steam engine) placed at one of the ends of the field in which
the work is to be carried on. The mechanical principle on which my
improved agricultural apparatus is constructed will be best understood by
reference to the annexed Sheet of Drawing. I have represented this apparatus
prepared for ordinary tillage, that is to say, furnished with several plough
shares and with a harrow, but it is intended by the aid of such mere accessary
arrangements as may be requisite in the several cases, to set at work, not
only ploughshares of every description, whether for simple ploughing with
mould boards, those for subsoil ploughing, for digging trenches, for irrigation
or special cultivation, the shares with scarifying blades, used for weeding and
extirpating roots, but also for towing harrows, clod-crushing rollers, or
compressing rollers, in fact for all agricultural machines intended to perform
any sort of work combined with or dependent on their locomotion over the
soil to be cultivated.
Figure 1 is an elevation of the apparatus drawn to a scale of th;
Figure 2, plan of same; and Figures 3 and 4 elevation and plan of an
axletree or windlass moved by a portable steam engine or any other motor
placed at the end of the field to be tilled. This motor remains always at the
same end of the field, and only requires a slight change of position after each
come and go journey of the working apparatus, and perpendicularly to the
direction of this latter, which can always be easily effected by the aid of levers
and rollers. The apparatus is composed of a framing formed of several
longitudinal bars B, of double I iron, carried on four wheels R; the shares
S and T are placed at each extremity, some to work by travelling in one
direction, the others in another direction; there may be several shares on
each side, a greater or a lesser number according to the nature of the soil,
although there is here only one share shewn on each side, the machine is
arranged to receive three on the left side and two on the right side; each of
these shares is mounted on a neck or beat U or V, furnished with a coulter ;
the neck is suspended to the framing by the aid of a two-armed lever L, l, or,
D, d, pivoting at o or at e; the other shares on the same side would bo
supported by similar levers pivoting at o¹ and o". It will be seen at the left
that the share S, drawn in black, is lifted by the lever L, l, the large arm of
which is simply engaged under a fixed stop or catch, whereas on the right
side the lever D, d, which fulfils the same functions, being released from the
catch the share T' would be working, and in this case the plough would travel
from right to left, going from the motor, Figure 3. A handle. Ke
or

page_text: serves the conductor of the apparatus for placing the share S or T in
commencing each furrow in going and returning. The neck or beam which
carries the share is itself carried by a vertical slide, sliding between the
longitudinal bars; it is jointed at the bottom of this slide at i or at u; a screw
with crank m or n, serves to lower more or less the slide carrying the neck,
and with it the share, in order that it may plough more or less deeply. The
positions of the shares S and T, drawn in black lines are those which they
must have to work in moving away from the motor, whereas those traced in
red lines are those which they have when coming towards it.
I will now explain the working of the apparatus both as to the come and
go motion. As already stated the plough working with the shares S travels
here from left to right, that is to say, in approaching the motor, if we suppose
the ploughing of a field about to be commenced, in this case the ploughing
apparatus would be placed at one extremity and the motor at the other
extremity of this field. The motor has a drum F, on which winds a cable or
chain, making two or three turns; it will be understood that this drum
will turn now in one, now in another direction, to cause the machine to
advance or retire. The traction cable is fixed by one end at G, to the
machine, from whence it comes and winds two or three times on the drum F
of the motor, and from thence it passes over a large grooved pulley A,
mounted on a shaft carried by the framing of the machine and placed been
the two axles. The cable on leaving the pulley A, passes to, and is exed by
its other end to the drum C, the shaft of which turns in the hearings of
brackets (E), carried by the framing; it winds entirely on this frum when the
machine advances towards the motor, while on the contrary, it unwinds when it
retires from it. The manner in which this come-and-go movement effects the
ploughing, harrowing, or other work, in moving away as in returning is as
follows: Let us suppose the machine at the left end of the field, the motor
being at the opposite end, if we set it in motion in the direction indicated by
the curved arrow, Figure 3, the cable g, g', winding on the drum F, and drawing
along the machine to which it is attached at G causes it to advance in the
direction indicated by the large lower arrow, and the share S will thus work
as well as all those placed on the same side. In the forward movement of
the machine the carrying or bearing wheels (R) keyed on their axles turn, and
these axles carrying toothed wheels Q, Q', transmit their movement by the
aid of an endless chain to the pinions q, q', keyed on the shaft of the large
grooved pulley A, on which the traction cable passes as above stated. On
leaving the drum F the journey of this cable f, f, f", is further indicated by
it is attached by its other end (as shewn Figure 2). to the drum C, on
arrows;

page_text: which it winds. This winding is produced: by the rotary motion of the said
drum which is caused by the aid of an endless chain or an endless strap or
band I passing over a pulley or wheel P of the shaft of the large pulley A,
and on another pulley p, keyed on the shaft of the said drum. When the
machine in making its furrows shall have arrived near the motor it will be
necessary to cause it to retrograde, which it will do, tracing intermediate
furrows. For this purpose having stopped the motor, the share S is lifted, and
that, T, is lowered, and it will then be this latter (represented in black lines)
which will trace the return furrow. For this purpose the motor will be made to
turn in the reverse direction, the traction cable will wind in its passage round
the drum F, in unwinding from the drum C, but it cannot unwind from this
drum excepting after it has unwound from the large pulley A, to which it gives
in passing a rotary motion which it communicates to the carrying or bearing
wheels by the aid of the endless chains J, J', passing on the pinions q, q', and
QQ, as we have already seen, but the working is in an opposite direction.
A little before the arrival of the machine at its point of departure it will be
made to deviate from its direction by making the axles of the carrying wheels
to slightly converge, which is effected by causing the bearings in which the
axles turn to move in a slide. This movement might be obtained in several
ways; I use for this purpose a hand fly-wheel W, keyed on a vertical shaft
carrying a conical pinion, which gears into a similar pinion (r) keyed on a
horizontal screw, which in turning in a screw-threaded hole of the said
bearings causes them to advance to the right or to the left, so that the axles
may take an oblique direction as regards the horizontal bars or framing (as
indicated by the red lines X, Y,) they are afterwards brought back by the same
means to their normal position, when the machine again begins its forward
movement. It is then that the barrow H is lowered, it working at the same
time as the shares S. This harrow is towed by the machine to which it is
tied by rods s, t, which permit its being lifted for the return journey.
In conclusion, I claim as my Invention the machine above described in its
entire combination, without however confining myself in its construction to
the precise details illustrated on the annexed Drawing, provided that I do not
depart from the principle upon which it has been conceived. But I claim
specially and principally the means or method of causing to work in going
and returning all implements of husbandry, such as ploughs of every
description, weeding hoes or scarificators, harrows, rollers, clod crushers, or
compressors, and generally all instruments of an analogous nature, by the aid
of a motor of any description remaining always on the same side of the field

page_text: in which, the work is carried on; the whole substantially as herein-before
described and illustrated on the annexed Sheet of Drawing.
In witness whereof, I, the said Virgile Poitevin, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourth day of December, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-five.
V. POITEVIN. (L.S.)
Signed and sealed in the presence of
L. D'AUBREVILLE, C. E.