TRACTION ENGINES.
Traction Farm Engines are becoming more generally used each year, and to supply the increasing demand for traction engines, the manufacturers have spared no expense or mechanical skill to place upon the market the latest improvements in this line, and a great many kinds of this class of engine now made in the United States are simply perfect. They travel over the roughest roads, up and down steep hills with heavy loads, and the engine is at all times entirely under the control of the engineer. In fact, there is no class of engines that has had a more marked advancement toward perfection in the past few years than the farm traction engine.
As this class of engines in the majority of cases goes into the hands of men inexperienced in the handling of machinery, they are subjected to the very hardest usage and neglect, which, of course, hastens their destruction. Every purchaser of an engine should acquire sufficient knowledge of the operating and handling of it so that he will know when it is properly cared for.
No engine has to run at more variable speeds than a traction engine. It is very important for this reason that the steam ports should be of sufficient area to admit of a very high piston speed, and allow the steam to follow the piston at the necessary velocity. Small ports are useless, as when the link is notched up, and the travel of the valve thereby reduced, the openings are too cramped for the steam to pass in and out of the cylinder comfortably. The result is, that the slide valve is forced off its seat and the engine primes as soon as any great speed is attained. It is easy to tell by the sound of the exhaust if the ports are rightly proportioned, and whether running at high or low speed, the engine should give a clear and distinct exhaust at every stroke of the piston.