The engine was drawing twenty disc-ploughs, and could plough
twenty-eight to thirty acres of land a day, week in and week out.
Until recent years land in the Argentine Republic has been ploughed in
small areas by animal labour, the farmer or colonist often employing the
members of his family to assist him, and thus saving expense. Owing,
however, to the immense harvests and the vast tracts of country awaiting
development, it has become necessary to work on a much bigger scale, and
to bring in the aid of machinery. In some places the ordinary form of
steam plough has presented many practical disadvantages. They are heavy
and unwieldy, and apt to sink in soft ground, from which they are
extricated with difficulty. This is likely to cause damage, or more
serious accidents, through explosion. Further, they require a constant
train of water-carts and fuel wagons, and a staff of at least six
persons to work them. At the spot where this engine was working the
latter objections were obviated, as both wood and water were plentiful.
In general, these difficulties are largely overcome by the adoption of
the naphtha motor engine, which has been brought to a state of
considerable perfection in Great Britain and the United States. It can
be employed not only for ploughing and threshing, but also for traction,
excavation, and embankment work, etc.
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