STEAM CULTIVATION.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3249, 12 July 1871, Page 3

STEAM CULTIVATION.

A highly important and very successful exhibition of direct traction ploughing, by means of Thompson's road steamer, and a new balance plough, invented by the Earl of Dunmore, was made in April, at Dunmore Park, before a committee of the Highland and Agricultural Society. It is well known that the india rubber tires on tbe wheels of the road steamer enables it to travel over any road, however soft; over sand, or ploughed land, or grass, or pastures. When the astonishing capabilities of tho new traction engine were first seen in Edinburgh by tho Earl of Dunmore, he at once perceived that the use of the steamer as an agricultural implement was possible, and that with its success a new and important era. in steam cultivation would be inaugurated. Lord Dunmore was the first to order an agricultural engine ; and after various vicissitudes it was fairly tried on Tuesday week. The field to be broken up, lying immediately below the ancient town of Dunmore, had lain in pasture for forty years, and had not been ploughed since 1831. It had rained heavily all the morning, and all the previous night and day, and as the field had never been drained, it afforded ample opportunity for the verification of the evil prophecies of those who had declared that no traction engine could drag itself, much less a plough, over such land. The engine was, however, started, and dragging the plough after it, steamed down the field in the easiest manner imaginable. When fairly started, the work executed was really admirable. The furrows, six inches by ten, were beautifully turned over, closely packed, giving a nice shoulder and a capital seed bed. There was not a hitch but what would have occurred to an ordinary sowing or double furrow plough. Tho plan adopted is to leave a headland of forty feet in which the steamer can turn. The plough of three furrows is then drawn up and down the field till finished, the headlands being afterwards ploughed across as with the ordinary plough. This leaves forty feet at the corners of each field to be done by horse or other labor, instead of eighteen feet as at present. The engine turns at the headlands in thirty-two seconds, so that no time is lost; and on Tuesday the length of furrow turned over in eight minutes was 300 yards. Working ten hours a day, Lord Dunmore calculates that seven acres of autumn stubble can be ploughed per diem, at a cost of 2s 9d per acre; and in spring ploughing lea, five acres per diem, at 3s lOd per acre. When horses were put on to the land in the morning, their hoofs sank three inches ; but the wheels of the steamer never sank more than from three-eighths to half an inch. Lord Dunmore calculates the expense of this engine at 19s 9d a day, but expects 208 days work in theyear. During the past month, with exception of four Sundays and a fast day, the engine was under steam every day. The variety of work, besides ploughing, threshing, and cultivating, which it has performed is interesting : pulling out tree roots, going to railway station with luggage, carrying heavy timber, cutting hay and straw, bruising oats, working saw mill, carrying drain tiles, pumping water (the steamer has pumped 20,000 gallons in seven hours), driving gravel for roads, driving coal, &c.