Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1883 — THE STEAM FLOW. [ARTICLE]

THE STEAM FLOW.

When and Where Invented, How Constructed, and Where Vied. An apparatus for steam plowing was first patented in the United States Nov. 19, 1833, by E. C. Bellinger, at South Carolina. It was not received with sufficient favor by farmers or planters to encourage the manufacture of the machines. In England, Francis Moor took out a patent as early as 1769 for an engine-to plow, harrow, mid do other farm work without the aid of horses. Several other attempts at inventing steam plows were made, but all to no practical purpose, until 1810, when a Maj. Pratt patented a steamplowing apparatus, employing two engines stationed on opposite headlands, and drawing plows by means of endless chains or ropes. An improved form of this machine was pateuted byMr. Heathcote, M. P., in 1832, which is said to be the first that was ever worked successfully in the field. Alexander Mcßea made improvements on Mr. Heathcote’s machine in 1846 and 1849; still the practical results were insignificant until in 1854, when John Fowler, also of England, brought forward an improvement on the plans of Bellinger, Pratt and others, since which time various changes and additions have been made, and steam plowing has gone into successful practice on many of the large estates-"of Great Britain and in the East and West Indies, about 1,500 steam plows being now in use in England alone. Many attempts to invent a successful traction engine for steam plowing have been made. The plan called cable traction, invented in pait by Pratt, in part by Bellinger, and improved by Fowler, has been operated with greater success than any other. It consists of a single locomotive engine, of from twelve to four teen-horse power, with a windlass under the boiler, around which passes a single steel-wire cable, which, by means of hinged clips, lays hold of the cable with a grip proportioned to the strain. This continuous cable, twice the width of the plat to be plowed, passes around a sheave, or pulleyblock, fastened to a self-acting anchor’ placed on the opposite side of the field from the engine. This “anchor” consists of a low truck on four wheels, with sharp, disk edges, which cut so deep into the soil that it will not drag when the traction is applied. A box loaded with stones, or some other weight, on the outer side of this truck keeps it from tilting when the power is applied to the plows. A sheave on the truck gives motion to a drum which winds up another cable attached to a post or anchor in the direction in which the*furrows are to succeed each other, so that the machine warps itself along the headland on which it is stationed just as fast as the plowing progresses, keeping at all times directly ojiposite to the locomotive engine, which is moving down the opposite headland in the same direction. The plows are attached to a balance frame, the especial invention of Mr. Fowler, and are in duplicate, pointing to each other, so that when the set at one end of the frame is at work the opposite set is carried along the cable in the air. The plow frame is hauled from one side of the field to the other, between the engine and the movable anchor, by reversing the action of the windlass. It is adapted to turning from two to eight furrows at once, according to the pow'er of the engine and toughness of the soil. The amount of ground plowed by such a machine varies from three to eight acres a day for a three-furrow gang, according to depth of furrow from twelve inches to four inches. An eight-furrow gang will do a little more than twice this amount of work per day. For various reasons steam plowing is not practiced to any noticeable exteut in the United States, but it is probable that, as the advantages of this mode of turning up the soil to a depth not practicable by animal draft become better understood, and other changes transEire, it will go into successful operation ere as it has done in England.—Chicago Inter Ocean.