A Steam Farmer.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 192, 6 September 1888, Page 3

A Steam Farmer.

The Canadian Court in the International Exhibition at Glasgow contains a model of what is termed “Mr Romaine’s Steam Farmer,” destined by the inventor to supersede <he plough in all forms in working out the system of cultivation. Mr Romaine, the inventor, for the last thirty years has studied the construction of implements fur completely pulverising the soil, and at the same time not turning up the subsoil. His steam farmer is not only able to plough rapidly, but prepare a seed bed and sow the seed at the one operation, and when harvest comes it can be utilised to cut the grain and thresh it at the same time. The implement is represented as a powerful, self-propelling locomotive machine and apparatus, supported and propelled by means of a series of broad surveying wheels. The machinery and apparatus are suspended high enough above the ground to permit them to pass over the ground crops until they have attained the height of about 4ft., without injuring them, in order to cultivate, hoe, earth up, and repeatedly stir the soil between the drilled rows of grain or root crops. It is made of four steel girders, suitably braced transversely, and covered with a strong and creosoted plan k flooring, forming a species of portable or locomotive bridge, which is about 25 feet«ong and 16 feet broad, thus enabling it to cultivate or harvest a strip of land about 22| feet wide at one time, ft is propelled by four wheels at each end, which travel on parallel strips of soil about 18 inches wide, which are not disturbed at any time for purposes of cultivation. The machine substitutes for the traction implements now in use a series of quick rotating and reciprocating implements suspended over the whole wid-hof land to be operated and capable of self-adjustment as to depth, thus securing a thorough and accurate pul verisation of the soil to a depth of 12 inches or 14 inches >f required. It makes provision for the attachment of a series of rotating and reciprocation, cutting and digging implements, whereby the soil between the rows of growing crops whether grain, corn, root or small fruit crops, may be stirred to any desired depth, hoed or earthed up, and in any stage of their growth until they attain the height of 4 feet. Generally considered, the advantages claimed for the machine by the inventor are that it is labor saving and profitable, increases production, thoroughly cleans the land and tends to its enrichment, enables the agriculturist to cope with the vicissitudes of the season and leaves no place for the impaction of soils. The inventor is endeavoring to get a complete machine constructed so that it can be seen in actual operation before the closing of the Exhibl-