We can be grateful for author, Michael Partridge’s early
interest in the techniques of farming, for it has led to a most
readable and informative book.
‘Farm Tools Through the Ages’ does exactly what its name
indicates it takes a look at implements used by farmers down
through the ages.
The book is arranged under 10 headings; land drainage,
cultivating the soil, steam cultivation, sowing and planting,
harvesting crops, processing crops, barn machinery, tools for use
with livestock, motive power, and the farm dairy.
The sections then describe how tools evolved to handle the
various tasks that confronted farmers throughout the centuries. We
are struck anew with respect for these hardy tillers who sowed and
cultivated, and reaped and kept the human race going. A special
debt is owed to those innovative few who found better ways of doing
things and who persevered until their new methods and implements
were adopted.
The book describes numerous implements and tools such as the
potato dibber, the turnip chopper, the hacking stick, the waddle
hurdle, the flax brake and of course, many, many more.
Iron-Men Album readers, however, are probably most interested in
the section on steam cultivation. In these 17 pages Partridge
discusses the development of the use of steam in farming. The text
is larded with some splendid illustrations. These include a picture
of John Heathcote’s steam plough, 1836; a diagram of John
Fowler’s plowing system; views of the Savage plowing engine and
an illustration of the single-engine system of plowing with a
Savage engine; a picture of Rickett’s cultivator, 1858, and
more.
In 1770 Richard Lovell Edgeworth patented a steam engine that
traveled upon an ‘endless railway system.’ Flat bearers
were attached to the wheels of the engine to support its weight on
soft ground. The method was not considered successful until the
Boydell patent in 1846.
In 1810 a Major Pratt patented a steam haulage system in which
the plow was dragged on the end of a rope. A steam engine was
stationed at one end of a field and an anchor cart with a
horizontal pulley was set at the other end. A winding drum beneath
the engine’s boiler turned an endless rope around the anchor
pulley, alternately playing it out and winding it back onto the
drum. The plow, attached to the rope, moved between engine and
anchor.
Among other plow pioneers were John T. Osborn and Lord
Willoughby d’Eres by.
John howler was the first to show that cable cultivation could
be profitable. His apparatus used three systems; single engine,
double engine, and roundabout. His idea of using a stationary steam
engine to wind in a rope and draw a mole plow won a prize in 1854
offered by the Royal Agricultural Society in England.
Although Fowler died at the age of 38, his factory already
employed over 1,000 workers early in the 1860s. Partridge says
Fowler’s plowing system formed the ‘basic pattern for cable
haulage until they were totally replaced by tractor-drawn plows in
this present century.’
This steam cultivation section of the book also contains data on
steam digging and the rotary hoe, both of which should interest our
readers.
Farmers and steam engine fans will enjoy this book. It is well
written and well designed. The author has studied at the Royal
College of Art in London and his own sketches contribute much to
understanding the text.
If you are interested in the history of farming or want to know
how your ancestors scratched a living from the soil with primitive,
yet effective tools, get this book. Michael Partridge knows his
subject. He writes well and draws well and has put together a
worthwhile volume of 240 pages containing 260 illustrations.
We come away from this book with an increased admiration for the
farmers and craftsmen of earlier days and for the inventors who
made things easier and more productive. We join in the author’s
hope that somehow country crafts be kept alive, perhaps on some
working farms.
This book, ‘Farm Tools Through the Ages,’ is priced at
$6.75 postpaid. Order from Steam gas Publishing Company, Box 328,
Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17604.
