[SEL] Steam Cable plows, was nice wheels

[Frank DeWitt]

I ran across this article on cable plows

Steam-operated cable plowing developed successfully in England, using 
a system of two steam engines pulling a cable-drawn plow. The English 
cable plows were capable of traveling safely at up to 4 mph when 
plowing through good soil. The length of the furrow was usually 
measured in 1/2 miles rather than in rods, and the early English 
cable plows, with their short strings of cable, were grossly 
inadequate. By 1870, there were 3,000 steam cable-plowing outfits in 
operation in England and only four outfits operating in the U.S. 
Henry E. Lawrence, a southern planter, used one of these plowing 
outfits on his 1,000-acre sugar estate near New Orleans.

Cable plowing never really took root in North America, owing mostly 
to issues of topography and the large size of our fields, 
particularly in the West. The general use of cable-type steam plows 
was widespread in Germany around the 1890s, and they were still being 
used for reclaiming peat land as late as the 1970s.

http://www.steamtraction.com/article/2003-03-01

Interesting

Frank