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.