MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 39 



greatest power to make the cut. There is another advantage in this 

 knife. The point is so strong and the momentum so great that a 

 seasoned root or stock would be split and cut in two without checking 

 the machine. 



Parker's New Straw Cutter. This is a straight knife, 15 inches 

 long, screwed on the front part of the feeding-box, and the cut is 

 given by turning a crank and fly-wheel, upon the shaft of which is a 

 crank that lifts a frame which brings up the straw so as to give it a 

 diagonal stroke upon the knife. 



Daniel's Patent^ Straw Cutter. This is powerful machine, and for 

 horse or steam power is the most effective of any of the recently in- 

 vented cutters. Tne frame and box are in the ordinary form, similar 

 to that of the one first described. The crank is iipon the arm of a 

 heavy fly-wheel, 3 feet diameter upon one side, and forming part of 

 which is a driving-pully. Upon wings on the shaft of this are four 

 straight knives, ten inches long and two inches wide. The straw is 

 brought up to them by a spiked roller, geared by spur-wheels to the 

 main shaft, and the cut is made by the knives upon the straws resting 

 across the edge of a piece of iron, set so that the cut is diagonal. 



The following notice of recent improvements in plows and cultiva- 

 tors, and the exhibition of the same at the New York Crystal Palace, 

 is abridged from the columns of the New York Tribune. 



The number and variety of these implements on exhibition was 

 very large, and from their examination it would seem as though there 

 was no limit to the inventive genius of man, as applied to the con- 

 struction, alteration and adaption of the form of cast iron to all shapes, 

 sizes and kinds of plows, possible to conceive, thus lessening the labor 

 of preparing the ground, or cultivating every variety of crops grown 

 between tropical Florida and the barley fields of Lake Superior. 



Many will doubtless remember the old Gary Plow, with its clumsy, 

 wrought iron share, wooden land-side and standard, and wooden mold- 

 board, plated over with a piece of tin, sheet-iron, or old saw-plate, 

 requiring the strength of a man to hold it by the two pins in its up- 

 right handles, and at least double the strength of team now required 

 to do the same work. Then there was the old Bar-share Plow a 

 flat bar forming the landside, with a thick clamp of iron like the half 

 ofi a lance-head for the point, in the top of which the coulter was 

 clumsily locked, and of course a wooden mold-board without any pre- 

 tensions to making a fit with the iron part. 



The Chinese plow is similar, and the effect is similar to what it 

 would be if a man should hold a sharp pointed shovel, back up, with 

 the handle at angle of 45, and it should then be drawn forward with 

 the point in the ground. 



The plows in Continental Europe have undergone but little change 

 for centuries. The ancient Roman plow is still in general use in 

 France. It has a beam, a share and a handle. The share is a trian- 

 gular shaped piece of wood with an iron point, and sometimes a coul- 

 ter. There is a mold board, and the point is shaped like the head of 

 a lance. The first step toward improvement in this rude implement 



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