plough was a great success and made in huge numbers. However a diverse range of different types of agricultural equipment was made, for example an advert in 1891 lists their famous ploughs and harrows plus disk harrows, horse rakes, mowers, reapers, cultivators, land-rollers, hay presses, straw trussers, grass harrows, horse hoes, vine cultivators, sheaf binders, scarifiers, clod crushers, straw presses, plantation wagons, mining plant and portable railway. With the advent of steam power on farms, Howard started producing the ploughs and winding gear for steam ploughing, later including portable engines to drive the gear, and eventually ploughing engines able to carry out many other duties. In 1895 they added a portable oil engine intended to drive machinery, also available as a stationary engine. Traction engines Howard traction engines were introduced in the 1870s. They are recognisable by their distinctive placement of the steam engine behind the boiler, rather than on top as for the far more common overtype. Howard claimed this reduced the heavy strain on the boiler and resulted in less wear and leakage, it also meant it was more compact for shipment, and with the working parts hidden from view it was "less likely to frighten horses". This gives them an unusually long and low appearance, with the flywheel set particularly low. This also requires the provision of a steam dome atop the boiler, an unusual arrangement for an English engine. Although usually plain in appearance and painted black, with little ornamentation compared to the later Edwardian engines, Howards carried very large brass nameplates on their boiler sides and smokebox door reading "James & Fredk Howard. Bedford. England". They also built ploughing engines. Unlike the better-known Fowlers, the Howard used a pair of winding drums. This allowed a single engine and an anchored return pulley to plough, rather than the Fowler system that used a pair of engines, each one pulling alternately. The two drums were too large to fit in the usual position beneath the boiler and so were moved to a horizontal axle behind the engine's scuttle, with a pair of sheaves beneath the boiler to guide the cables. In 1903 Howard added a 5-ton steam wagon to their product list. This followed conventional lines with a vertical boiler sited at the front. Railway and railway locomotives In 1885 Howard added portable railway equipment into their portfolio, and the link to agriculture is that this was