AGRICULTURAL MECHANICS AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



101 



ends of the tubes fit in behind these teeth, so as to prevent them from accident by striking 

 against any obstructions, or from filling with dirt. 



aaaa are four cams arranged around the axle B. b is a rod having its lower end attached 

 to the valve d, and its upper end pressed up against the cams by a spring c, so that said 

 spring and rod opens and closes said valve at every depression and swell of the four or quad- 

 ruple cam. There is an inclined bottom on the tubes, made of spring steel, so as to yield should 

 a grain be caught in the valve, and allow it to be thrown out when the valve again opens. 

 The markers g g g g, of which there are four on the periphery of the wheel A, must bear such 

 relative positions to the cams as that they shall arrive at the exact point where the seeds are 

 to be deposited, after making due allowance for the time that the seed occupies in falling 

 from the hopper or cylinder to the valve. 



In relation to the construction and operation of this machine, Mr. Redick states, in his 

 specification, that the devices which he uses have been employed before, separately, on seed- 

 ing-machines, but not combined ; and that it was by observing the defects of their separate 

 results that he was enabled to unite them to produce a practical operative machine, that can 

 lay off the ground, and drop the seeds at the marks previously made, without any variation 

 caused by the unequal speed of the horse. In the old machines the variable speed of the 

 horse caused irregular planting, because the markers had a variable and the seeds an un- 

 changed velocity. "By my arrangement of the cams, valves, and markers," he says, "I 

 have brought the machine practically to perfection in this particular, as the distance that the 

 grains have to fall allows the markers to come to the precise point ; and should the markers 

 vary the least from the exact point, either in overreaching or falling short of it, the operator, 

 by the handles, can raise up or draw back the machine to bring it right." 



Fenwick's Corn-planter. — This invention, of R. W. Fenwick, of Brooklyn, New York, is ex 

 ceeding simple, and apparently effective. The nature of the improvement consists in having 

 the seed-slide turn on a centre, and in connecting it with a conical valve at the bottom of the 

 planting-tube, and with a sliding-tube which takes up dirt for covering the corn. When the 

 end of the planting-tube is struck into the ground the valve is operated, and with it the slide 

 whereby a proper quantity of seed is taken from the seed-box in the upper part of the imple- 

 ment and dropped ; at the same time the covering-tube is made to take up dirt and cover 

 the corn. 



Machine for Planting Potatoes. 

 Fta.l 



The annexed engravings are views of a machine for planting potatoes, for which a patent 

 was granted to Alexander Anderson, January, 1855. Fig. 1 is a vertical longitudinal section 

 through the middle of the machine, and fig. 2 is a perspective view. Similar letters refer to 



