IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING TILLAGE IMPLEMENTS BY STEAM OR OTHER MOTIVE POWER AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SUCH IMPLE- MENTS
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Algernon Clarke at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
30th April 1875.
I, JOHN ALGERNON CLARKE, of Sutton St. Mary, otherwise Long
Sutton, in the County of Lincoln, Farmer, do hereby declare the nature
of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN PROPELLING TILLAGE IMPLEMENTS
BY STEAM OR OTHER MOTIVE POWER AND IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SUCH IMPLE-
MENTS," to be as follows:-
The object of my said Invention is to avoid the use of windlasses,
winding drums, coiling gear, wire ropes, rope porters, anchors, pulleys,
and other complicated mechanical arrangements involved in hauling
tillage implements, alike by what is known as the stationary engine
system and by the shifting headland engine system; also to avoid the
loss of motive power and other disadvantages pertaining to the system of
hauling tillage implements by an ordinary locomotive or traction
engine; and to effect the operations of ploughing, cultivating, and other

page_text: tillage processes by steam or other motive power applied in a simpler
and more economical manner.
I employ a single or compound plough, cultivator, digger, subsoiler,
ridge plough, drag, harrow, roller, drill, rotary pulverizer, or other
implement tilling the soil by traction or horizontal movement, or such
tillage implements in a series of the same kind or in a combination of
different kinds. To propel such tillage implement I place upon the
frame a steam engine and boiler or an engine working by other motive
power, with suitable wheel or other gearing for driving one or more
travelling wheels or propeller wheels purposely provided, or other
apparatus for laying hold of the soil; or I incorporate a steam engine
and boiler or other motive power engine with the structure of a tillage
implement, so that the whole forms one and the same machine; or I
temporarily connect a steam engine and boiler or other motive power
engine with a tillage implement, so that the engine and boiler are wholly
or in part upheld and supported by the implement, or so that the
implement is wholly or in part upheld and supported when in work by
the engine and boiler or framing connected therewith, in each case, one
or more of the travelling wheels of the engine or of the implement, or
one or more propeller wheels or apparatus for laying hold of the soil,
being driven by suitable wheel gearing or other mechanical appliances
transmitting motion from the engine crank shaft; or I propel an imple-
ment for specially heavy tillage, or for rooting or getting up stones, or
excavating, or draining by means of a clip drum or rope drum driven by
such engine upon the implement or machine, in connection with a fixed
rope or chain anchored at either end.
My Invention of making a traction tillage implement locomotive by
permanently or temporarily combining it with a steam engine or engine
working by other motive power, in such a manner that one or more
travelling wheels or propeller wheels or apparatus for laying hold of the
soil is driven by the power of the engine, as above described, may be
carried out in various ways, and cither with an adaptation of a common
portable locomotive or traction engine, or with a vertical boiler and
engine self-contained, or with a boiler and engine fixed separately, or by
other arrangement of a steam engine or other motive power.
I prefer to place a vertical boiler with self-contained engine upon a
pair of travelling wheels, one or both of which to be driven by suitable

page_text: gearing either directly or by means of intermediate motions from the
crank shaft of the engine, and the tires of the said travelling wheels may
be armed with spikes or blades to prevent their skidding or slipping on
the ground. The boiler carrying the engine and wheel gearing is partly
supported and held in position by the framing of the implement which
is placed in the rear; and the implement frame is upheld at the forward
end by the boiler or its pair of wheels, and at the hinder part by one
travelling wheel or more.
Steering may be effected by arranging the boiler loosely within a
portion of the implement frame, in such a manner that it can be turned,
together with its pair of travelling wheels, its engine, gearing, and other
working parts, in any angular direction by suitable mechanical appliances,
either actuated by the power of the engine or by a person directing the
machine.
The implement may be adjusted to different depths or widths of work
by screw motions or other arrangements applied in the mode of attaching
the implement frame to the boiler, or otherwise, or the adjustments may
be made by raising or lowering one or both of the main travelling
wheels, or raising or lowering the hinder travelling wheels, or in any
other convenient manner. And lifting the implement out of work or .
lowering it into work may be accomplished by depressing or raising one
or more of the travelling wheels supporting the implement, by lever,
screw, or other motions worked by the attendant, or such depressing or
raising of one or more travelling wheels may be effected by the power of
the engine applied either through suitable mechanical arrangements
from the engine crank shaft, or through levers, chains, or other con-
nections from a separate steam cylinder and piston, or in any other con-
venient manner.
One part of my Invention relates to the construction of an implement,
so as to be easily convertible for the purposes of ploughing or cultivating,
or performing other tillage operations. By altering the angular position
of one or more beams or bars of the frame, and changing the position of
one or more travelling wheels, the same main framing is adapted for the
temporary attachment of plough skifes in a diagonal arrangement, or for
the attachment of cultivating tines in a transverse arrangement, alter-
nately in front and back rows or in any other order, or for the

page_text: attachment of other tillage instruments; or the implement may be
converted from a ploughing machine into a cultivating machine, and
vice versa, by removing a portion or portions of the framing with the
plough skifes affixed and substituting other portions of framing with
cultivator fittings, leaving the main or supporting parts of the framing
unaltered.