THE STEAM PLOUGH.

When the first experiments were being made with the Hay-making Machine, now commonly used in some parts of the country, it happened that Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Peacock, the author of “Crotchet Castle,” “Headlong Hall,” and other works of pungent erudition, were walking through a field where this strange-looking machine was in operation. Instead of the pleasant sight of the rustic men and women with their forks and rakes—a scene so full of indelible associations, from childhood upwards—they saw this quaint monster rolling round the field over the long swathes of hay, its rotatory forks, or rather fingers on wheels, flinging up the hay on all sides as it went spinning onwards. Meditating on the effect, if successful, this would, some day, have on the vast numbers of poor people in England, to say nothing of the summer invasions of Irish—whose sole dependence for the year is the money they make in the English hay-season—Shelley and the others walked onwards, and left the field. Presently they met a clownish fellow, who was looking intently at the whirling and whisking performance of the round-about machine in the hay-field. Shelley, having no objection to find, in the then adjusted state of society with regard to the labouring classes, that this machine was a failure, said to the clown, in a sort of half contemptuous tone—“Now, tell me,—does that thing answer at all?” The fellow looked Shelley full in the face—“It answers a deuced deal too well,” said he; “I wish it was working in the inside of him that made it!”

In this very unsophisticated reply, how vast a question is comprised! But into it we cannot now enter; our present business is how to plough by steam; and the smoke from the “nostrils” of a variety of elegant ploughs, of various horse-and-man powers, is already inviting our attention. Truly, it requires one to take one’s breath before commencing the examination!

Old Hesiod, in the second book of his “Works and Days,” after giving particular directions for the selection of the wood, as to its natural qualities and form, and also its suitability to an artificial curve, gravely shakes his venerable head, and says—

“To make a plough, great is the expense and care.”

Virgil, following his great progenitor, enters with still more minute precision into the details of the selection of the wood and its manufacture into a plough, adding, that he can “recite to you many precepts of the ancients—unless you decline them.”

Well, then, to be frank with antiquity, and all its great poets and philosophers, the present age fairly announces by its practices, that it does decline, not only the precepts but the example of the ancients, especially in agricultural matters.

The last and not the least important innovation on agricultural labour has yet to be consummated; and it would seem from two large plates, with explanatory remarks, which have been recently published by Lord Willoughby de Eresby, that a monster innovation is not very distant;—no less than “Ploughing by Steam.” All great inventions are the result of gradual improvement on a first idea; and an examination of these plates naturally induces us to take a cursory view of what has previously been attempted, and done, in this way.

Not wishing to go back to the “dawning idea” of a steam-plough, (for the problem was started some fifty years ago), we will begin with taking a look at Mr. Etzler’s “Iron Slave.” This was invented by a German, and constructed by an Oxfordshire engineer. A public trial of the Iron Slave was made in October 1845. A few signal shots were fired at day-break, the church-bells were set to ring a merry peal, and all the inhabitants of Bicester and Blackthorn came pouring out into the fields to witness the steam-performance of the newly discovered agricultural serf. Booths were erected, and the spectators made a long morning’s holiday while the Slave did his ploughing; and hoped that his success would lead, as it ought, to many other morning holidays. The most important result of this first trial was the establishment of a new mechanical principle, viz., “the transmission of power from a fixed point to a moving point, going in arbitrary directions at the will of one man at the steering wheel.” This, it seems, had been thought impossible by many scientific engineers. The engine was intended to move and do its work at the rate of three miles an hour; but whether the Iron Slave had not had his proper breakfast of coals, nor time enough to digest them into steam, or some part of his inside was a little out of order, was not accurately discovered; but certain it is that he could not plough fast enough. In other respects everybody was satisfied that steam-ploughing was a practicable thing.

In 1847, Mr. John T. Osborne, of Demerara, took out a patent for a steam-plough, the chief improvement (or distinguishing peculiarity—we must be cautious in the use of the word improvement,) on all previous attempts, being the employment of two engines and two ploughs, for one course of ploughing. While one plough was working in a given direction, and laying down the chain or rope by which it is to be worked back to the side from which it started—the other plough was performing a similar course in the reverse direction. When both had each traversed the ground once, the engines were removed forward the breadth of one furrow, by means of a chain or rope; one end of which was attached to an anchor fixed in the ground a-head.

Another Mr. Osborn, in 1848, tried some experiments near Stratford, in Essex, with a locomotive steam-engine, constructed for agricultural works in general, and for ploughing more especially. He appears to have taken out his patent in conjunction with Mr. Andrew Smith’s wire-rope—a manufacture of extraordinary strength. In the first trial, a pair of these peculiarly constructed locomotives was placed opposite each other—about one hundred and twenty yards apart—with a sufficient length of wire-rope between them. Although not successful, it demonstrated a novel fact as between the comparative draught by horses, and by a long rope, showing that the condition of the modes differ in a very marked way; the horse draught being upwards, and exercising a direct control by its proximity to the plough; whereas, the draught by steam-power and a rope was downwards, distant, and exercised no direct control over the plough. Hence this experiment, though unsuccessful, was instructive, and therefore to be valued as a good contribution to knowledge. Other trials were subsequently made by Mr. Osborn with a locomotive engine of ten horse power, and the ploughing was well done; fully settling the question of practicability, but leaving doubts in the minds of many on the important question of economy.

“These engines,” says a writer in the Mechanics’ Magazine, “possess great advantages in being applicable to thrashing, and other agricultural purposes, and can be moved from farm to farm, and from field to field, with the greatest facility.” No doubt of it. We see what will soon happen. Thrashing, and many other agricultural purposes! The great farmers, once in possession of the talisman of a steam-plough, will never rest till they make it applicable to all sorts of operations. Already almost every farmer in Scotland is provided with a stationary steam-engine; a locomotive that can turn—not its hands—but its wheels to anything, is now his only other thing needful. In the specification of the very first of these ploughs—Etzler’s Iron Slave—it is distinctly stated that, although the machine is intended for ploughing, yet the Slave will be ready at all times to devote his energies and skill to “sowing, and reaping; and also to making canals, roads, tunnels,” &c. Exactly so! After we have ploughed, sowed, reaped, and thrashed by steam, we shall soon find turnips hoed, carrots drawn, beans plucked up, dried, carted, and stacked; sheep sheared, cows milked, butter churned, cheese pressed, pigs transformed into pork, and pork into gammons, by the same omnipotent agency. Hatching eggs by steam is already an old story.

A patent for a new steam-plough was taken out in January of the present year by Mr. James Usher of Edinburgh; and another in June, by Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss. The peculiarity of the former consists in mounting “a series of ploughs in the same plane round an axis, so that the ploughs shall successively come into action;” and secondly, in applying power to give a rotary motion to the series, “so that the resistance of the earth to the ploughs, as they enter and travel through the earth, shall cause the machine to be propelled”—instead of motion being communicated to the machine from the wheels which run on the land. The other invention—that of Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss—mainly consists of a number of chains working round a wheel, and fitted on the outside with ploughshares. Rotary motion is communicated by a locomotive.

“I consider,” says Sir Abel Handy, in the comedy of Speed the Plough, “that a healthy young man between the handles of a plough, is one of the noblest illustrations of the prosperity of Britain.” But shortly after saying this, Sir Abel invents a splendid curricle plough drawn by high-bred Leicestershire horses; who set off at full gallop with the plough at their heels over hill and dale, and instead of doing the allotted work a-field, they rush about at random, ploughing up Salisbury Plain. What would Sir Abel have said to Sir Willoughby de Eresby’s snorting steam-horse, perfectly under control?

His machinery consists of a locomotive engine, weighing only three-and-a-half tons, and of a twenty-six horse power. It was designed by Mr. Gooch. It has a double capstan attached, “removable, when the engine is required for other purposes.” His lordship does not indicate any of these; but we may fairly imagine that his farm-engine will possess the same versatile genius as the inventions which have preceded it. His description of this machinery is very brief, clear, and without the use of any technical terms.

“The engine moves across the centre of the field on a light, portable railway. The ploughs advance and recede on either side of the railway, at right angles to it.

“The ploughs employed consist of four ordinary, and four subsoil ploughs, fixed in a frame. It is directed by a person standing upon a small platform.

“Two such ploughs, one on either side the railway, alternately advance and recede; the advancing plough working, the other idle until it regains its proper position for ploughing the next four furrows. On the completion of the four furrows both ways, the engine and side frames advance each three feet.

“The ploughs are attached to an endless chain, one hundred and fifty yards in length. They can be detached at pleasure, or shifted from one side of the chain to the other. They travel at the rate of five miles an hour. Provision is made in case they strike against any impediment.”

Arrangements are also made to suit irregularly shaped fields. The full power of the engine is not exerted with the ploughs, as thus described; and the number of blades can be increased if desirable. And now for the next statement, which brings us to a most important consideration.

“In the present state of things, it is difficult to form a correct estimate of the value of the invention in a commercial point of view. I will only say that a machine of the power, and with the arrangement described, would perform the work usually done by sixteen ploughs, driven by as many men, and drawn by thirty-two horses. Requiring itself the attendance of eight men, and a horse to draw the water for the engine, it would thus save the labour of thirty-one horses and eight men. Against this must be set an expense of five shillings a day for coals.”

In examining the question of economy in the use of steam-power instead of horses, we shall obtain valuable assistance from a paper addressed to Mr. J. T. Osborne, of Demerara, by the Council of the Highland Society. This paper sets the period of the productive labour of a horse against the unproductive period necessary for its rest, and exhibits results of a startling kind. Horses are fed and tended three hundred and sixty-five days of twenty-four hours, or eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours in the year. But they work only three hundred days, of about eight hours, taking the average, or two thousand four hundred hours a year. Thus we have a clear loss of six thousand three hundred and sixty hours of unproductive feeding and tending. It may be argued, that they are not fed and tended throughout the night, and therefore there is no such loss as the figures displayed by the Highland Society; but they are fed and tended enough to suffice them during the night, for which no compensating work is performed, so that it comes, we think, to nearly the same thing.

According to McCulloch, there are about one million two hundred thousand agricultural horses employed in Great Britain, which, at twenty-five pounds per head for maintenance, amounts to thirty millions sterling per annum for their keep. The unproductive portion, therefore, he finds amounting to the enormous sum of twenty-one millions seven hundred and eighty-five thousand three hundred and six pounds. It will be seen that this estimate is founded on the previous figures displaying the number of hours of feeding and tendence, compared with the number of hours’ work, and the consequent loss of six thousand three hundred and sixty hours. The only compensation for this loss of hours, represented by the above sum of upwards of twenty-one millions sterling, is in the value of the manure, which is thus produced at too great a cost.

“There are insuperable difficulties,” writes the Council of the Highland Society, “attending the employment of vital power; but mechanical power puts forth its energy when called for—it can be regulated, and, at pleasure, stopped. If it is desired to occupy the entire hours of daylight—to extend the field of operations—to work up more raw material—the energy of the animal ceases after a time; but not so that of the machine. The longest hours of summer may be advantageously employed.” And why not in the shortest nights of winter also? Could not steam-ploughs be made to carry their own lights with Hale Thomson’s patent silvered-glass reflectors, like other locomotives?

The next sentence brings us full-butt against the corner-stone of our social edifice, and moots the question as to the effect of machinery in increasing the demand for human labour:—“Were the whole period of daylight industriously employed in the most effective manner—that is, by the employment of machinery—the demand for human labour would be augmented in the exact ratio of the increased time, multiplied by the augmented force of the machinery.”

“Be fruitful and multiply,” said the God of Nature;—“You must be starved, if you do!” say the beldame economists. Meantime, an immense proportion of the habitable and fertile earth lies quite uncultivated, the vast seas are full of prolific food, and the land which is cultivated, is not made the most of. The art of tilling has not kept pace with other improvements. Before the wonders of steam appeared in the world there was occasionally a random attempt to introduce some improvement in tillage, but the experiments originated in a wish rather than in any definite plan, and were of course a failure and an absurdity. Dean Swift brought his pungent satire to bear upon these attempts, in his account of the grand Academy of Lagado, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver says he was highly pleased with a projector who had discovered a plan for turning up the ground with hogs, to save the charge of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method was beautifully simple. In a given field you bury at six inches distance, and eight inches deep, a quantity of acorns in long rows. You then drive six hundred hogs into the field, who, in search of the food they most love, will root or plough up the whole into furrows, with their snouts. The absurdities committed soon led to a cessation of all mere experiments, until at length came steam-engines, and thence, in due course, the dream of a steam-plough. This dream we are peradventure about to see realised in a few months; and then, though our million of agricultural horses will be diminished, our fine breed of Yorkshire and Lancashire ploughmen will not be thinned; any more than spinning and weaving machinery exterminated—as was awfully predicted it would—our army of spinners and weavers.

“I was bred to the plough,” said Robert Burns, when addressing a letter to the wealthy gentlemen of the Ayrshire Hunt:—“I am independent;” but it may turn out that the plough of old will soon be a sorry thing to depend upon. We are rather reminded of the Prologue to Chaucer’s “Ploughman Tale,” though he could have had no anticipation that his cessation from this labour would be final.

“Our strongest hope for the improvement of our social condition,” says Miss Martineau, “lies in the directing of intelligence full upon the cultivation of the soil.” The more the powers of science are brought to bear upon the tillage of the earth, and the production and manufacture of food, the greater will be the number benefited, and the more speedily will Miss Martineau’s axiom be verified. Cordially coinciding with that lady, we wish all success to the important undertaking of Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and shall be glad to find he accomplishes and establishes what has hitherto been confined to experimental trials.