Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)
Blake, Susan: A geographical analysis of agricultural engineering in Britain in the 19th century
ments as grubbers, clodcrushers, rollers etc., the labourers, however, feared unemployment. The riots, rick-burning, and machine breaking resulting from the widespread introduction of steam threshers in Southern England in the 1830's, provide an interesting illustration of the time lags in diffusion. For the labourers of Scotland and the North of England had accepted and been working with these machines for anything up to 60 years already. 9 But the second factor, of great importance to the subsequent development of agriculture and agricultural engineering alike, was the use for the first time of steam power in agriculture. In Northumberland and Scotland, the replacement by engine houses of the distinctive octagonal of circular wheel houses, built to shelter the horses whilst working the gins which powered the first threshers, was a landscape effect of the new steam powered threshers. And because fixed, rather than portable engines were favoured in the north, these enginespacehouses with their tall chimnevs contrast to the less perceptible accretion of farm buildings in the rest of England. However, some 500 wheelhouses remain in Northumberland alone, as a distinctive reminder of a past era of farm mechanization. 10 The most important technological effect of the introduction of steam power to threshing was that it proved that steam power could be usefully employed in agriculture as well as in industry. This revelation found dramatic outlet in the vogue for steam cultivation which dominated agricultural interests and experiment from the appearance of HEATHCOATE and PARKE's steam plough in 1834. to its demise in the 1880's. 11 4. The steam plough of JOHN FOWLER in 1856 is commonly held to be the first, probably because it later dominated the field; but in fact SMITH OF WOOLSTON's steam cultivator also preceded FOWLER's, in 1855, and always provided an alternative system, particularly for smaller holdings. 12 In 1877, DARBY of Chelmsford, Essex, produced a Rotary Steam Digger, which actually traversed the land, a possibility ruled out in the early discussions of RANSOME in 1843 and HOSKYNS in 1847 13 due to the immense weight of the engines poaching the ground. The development of steam cultivation led to the first deliberate locational shift in the agricultural engineering industry, from the local market centres in which it had become established by the 1830's. However, because of the formation of numerous steam cultivating companies which hired out machinery, there was no overall change in locational structure, and only a few important firms were established in the industrial towns of the Midlands, amongst which, FOLWER's of Leeds is notable. But many East Anglian firms did take part in the production of steam cultivating equipment and RANSOME's of Ipswich manufactured steam ploughs particularly for export to Eastern 9 See: HOBSBAWM and RUDE. Captain Swing. London 1969. iojournal of Newcastle University Geographical Society 1970. 19—29. I'See: Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 21: 1860. 401 et seq.; 20: 1859. 174—228.; 2nd series 3: 97. et seq. — BONNET, H. Saga of the Steam Plough. London 1965. ^Farmer and Gardeners' Magazine IV: 1837. 532. describes the first trial of steam plough at Red Moss, Bolton le Moors, Lanes in 1837. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 15: 1879. 397—487. describes its use in Sutherland reclamations. 13 Op. cit. — In: TALPA. Chronicles of a Clay Farm.
