h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You have steam engine rallys over there?


We have "monster truck rallys" over here, and antique car shows, muscle car shows... stuff like that. Never heard of a steam engine rally though.

Perhaps you do, but don't know about it.

Perhaps there are few examples of steam powered vehicles in the USA.
I might just follow that up sometime.

If anyone is interested but too lazy to look it looks something like this.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sharpos-world.co.uk/mainindx/uk/indx/rally/cromford/rollers/20007820.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.sharpos-world.co.uk/mainindx/uk/indx/rally/cromford/rollers/20007820.htm&h=461&w=635&sz=60&tbnid=tI1WAB4dByAJ:&tbnh=98&tbnw=134&start=21&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfowler%2Broller%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN

but bigger. My parents are also putting a roofy thing over it

There are still steam powered engines around - but most are in museums, or part of tourist destinations, like the Strasburg Railroad. It's a short line railroad that goes between Strasburg and Paradise - located just a few milies south of here.

Have you ever seen a stream powered plowing engine or a steam powered roller in use on a road?

Plowing engine? You mean like a tractor? I grew up on a farm, but all our equipment (while still quite old) was a bit more modern than that.

I think all the steam rollers I've ever seen have been gas powered too - all yellow CAT machines, as far back as I can remember.

I mean like this

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.steam-up.co.uk/essex_steam_2k/no2044_esr2k.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.steam-up.co.uk/essex_steam_2k/no2044_esr2k.htm&h=488&w=633&sz=37&tbnid=9eO8yNHaKtIJ:&tbnh=104&tbnw=134&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dspeed%2Bploughing%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8

Notice the drum with a cable wrapped arround it underneath it. This was used to drag the plough across the field, and aparently very fast. You'd have 2, one on each side of the field that you'd use to drag it up and down with. Aparently their better than tractors because they can pull very long bladed ploughs that tractors can't.

My dad grew up on a farm and he says he can remember them being used. Both my parents say that they can remember steam powered rollers being used.

Nope, never seen one of those in use.

On the other hand, those steel wheels aren't too unusual around here - the Amish don't use tractors for field work, but they do use them occasionally to run equipment at the barn, and all their vehicles have steel wheels.


How long would these plows be? I'm sure my brother has some pretty long plows - the newer tractors are rather high powered these days. They need to be in order to pull huge planters, tillers, pickers, etc. They also have Air Conditioning in the cabs, CD players, and GPS systems that tell them exactly how much grain they get from a particular plot of land, what the moisture content of the grain is, etc. Farming has arrived in the 21st century.

A lot of farmers here don't plow the land these days though - or do it very seldom, because the more you plow, the more the good top soil washes away into the streams and rivers.


Also, the more often all that heavy equipment is driven across the land, the more the soil is compacted, making it more difficult for the crop roots to break through the soil to reach moisture. For that reason (among others), a lot of farmers have gone to "no-till" systems - they plant the seeds using equipment that plants a dozen or more rows at once, then try not to enter the field with heavy equipment any more than absolutely necessary until harvest time. When they spray for weeds/insects, they usually use as small of a tractor as possible, with as large of a spread on the sprayer as possible to minimise soil compaction.

Interesting!

By long I meant that they go into the earth a long way. I never seen them so I can't tell you how far. I understand that the reason that the reason that a tractor can't pull them is because they slip more rather than anything to do with power. (In terms of horsepower that thing is rather pathetic in comparason to a modern tractor)

Funny how things change over time - plowing too deep (if you really must plow), isn't desirable because of the soil erosion it can cause.

I don't know wht you'd want to plow so deeply you understand. I'll ask him some time

The idea of plowing to begin with is to loosen the soil so that the crop roots can dig deeper more easily. Therefore, the deeper you can plow, the deeper the loosened soil will be.

But if you keep heavy equipment off the fields, the soil doesn't compact down so much that you need to loosen it so deeply or so often.

Ahh but you see with the steam plough you don't actually get the heavy machine on the field. They both stay at the side.

The digging up the soil with the plow is what allows the soil to erode though. Keeping the heavy equipment off the field is primarily important once the soil is in a loosened condition, although if you *must* plow for some reason, that's probably a better way to do it than taking the heavy tractor back and forth across the field.

I bet its absolute murder on unmadeup farmtracks

What are unmadeup farm tracks?

I should explain further about the erosion - they used to think that contour plowing/planting would prevent it sufficiently, but as time goes on, they're finding that leaving the roots from the previous year's crop intact helps prevent erosion even more.

"What are unmadeup farm tracks?"
translation from British to American = unpaved dirt roads
alternative British English might be "muddy ruts across fields that your car will sink axle deep in so you have to pay the farmer lots of cash to tow you with his tractor"

Thats right!

**SAFETY NOTE**
Never walk down these muddy ruts, as in order to avoid paying vast sums of cash to farmers wiv tractors the standard driving technique is to go like a bat out of hell in the hope you will have enough speed to slide through the really deep mud

*rolls eyes*

What are you even doing driving around on his property in the first place?!

Those little green things sticking up in the middle? Those are part of his crop!!! Get outa his field! No wonder you got stuck! '


And now that you just ruined a quarter acre of his crops, I don't blame him one bit for charging you *huge* amounts of money to pull you out!

Great News Lady S! The next time we converse I'll be doing it from my own computer. Yay. That is all.