124 REPORT — 1853. 



wheels on which the implement rests when it is not in action, and which also serve to 

 regulate tlie depth to which the forks of the digging frame are allowed to penetrate 

 the ground. The segments at the back of the travelling wheel frames being toothed, 

 two pinions gear into them, the place of which on the segments determines the height 

 at which tlie digging frame is sustained ; a winch attached to the latter works the 

 pinions. 



When the horses move forward, the attendant throws out of gear a pawl, which 

 holds the pinions at any given point ; the digging frame runs down by its own weight, 

 the prongs enter the ground, and the depth of their penetration is increased or dimi- 

 nished by turning the winch in opposite directions, thereby causing more or less 

 weight to rest on the travelling and digging wheels respectively. RIeanwhile the 

 resistance offered by the earth in front of the prongs causes the latter to revolve, and 

 portions of the soil to be detached, which are thrown back, after having been lifted 

 and broken by contact with the cleaning bars. 



A full-sized machine weighs a ton, and breaks u|) (to a depth not exceeding 10 

 inches) a breadth of 3 feet at a time, equal to that of four ploughs, and equivalent to 

 about five acres in seven hours. 



The draught required varies, wilh the nature and state of the soil, from four to 

 seven horses. A smaller implement is made for occupiers of land whose horse-power 

 is limited, capable of working about three acres in the same time with three or four 

 horses. 



About thirty digging machines, corresponding with the description here given, are 

 at work in various parts of this country ; one of them in this immediate neighbour- 

 hood, on the estate of Mr. Robert Harrison of Benningholme Hall. 



Whilst speaking of the digging machine, it is right to state that it possesses, in 

 common with all other rotatory implements hitherto made or proposed, this disadvan- 

 tage, as compared with the plough, that it does not completely invert the soil. 

 However, the occasions for such inversion are much more rare when we work with 

 an insti-runent which leaves the ground broken, hollow and mixed, like the digging 

 machine, than with one which, like the plough, cleaves off a sHce and exposes its 

 superficies only to the air ; there being, in fact, this essential distinction between the 

 two machines, that one allows the air and water to descend, whereas in the other, 

 fresh soil must be brought up, if it is to be acted upon by the elements. Hence also 

 an inconvenience is avoided by forking, which often accompanies the attempts to 

 deepen the mould, by means of the plough, in plastic soils ; namely, that the fresh 

 soil so brought up forms a compact coating, and is consequently for several reasons 

 injurious instead of beneficial to vegetation. Even were as many horses required 

 for a given acreage with the digging machine as with the plough, there would still 

 be a great gain both of horse and manual labour by the use of the former, since it 

 effects at one operation the work of several ploughings and harrowings, or scufilings ; 

 but in fact it succeeded, during the dry weather in June, in preparing the ground for 

 a crop on the strong clays in the vicinity of London, where a combination of the best 

 implements previously in use could make no impression upon it. 



The forks tend to pull out and leave the weeds on the surface, and it is therefore 

 useful in eradicating the couch-grass, the vegetation of which, the action of the 

 plough or scufHe, by cutting the tendrils, is calculated to promote. 



Whilst these improvements have been in progress, the sjnrit of invention has 

 not slumbered even at the antipodes; and we shall shortly see exhibited in this 

 country an Australian forking machine, not differing very greatly from some of those 

 which have been noticed. Mr. Wilson, the inventor, appears to have taken his hint 

 from noticing in a track of a waggon-wheel on soft ground that the side of the tyre 

 tends to abrade and throw back the earth. He prolongs the spokes of his wheels 

 beyond the tyre in the form of spuds, which are segments of an epicycloidal curve, 

 with a view to their encountering the least resistance in front or behind as they enter 

 the ground. 



Whatever may be the success of all or any of the cultivating machines which have 

 been brought under notice, enough has certainly been done to demonstrate that we 

 have entered upon a new epoch in the mechanics of tillage, and that how long soever 

 the dominion of the plough may be destined to last, it is not henceforth to reign alone. 

 Meanwhile the author was anxious to direct the attention of machinists to a branch 

 of their profession, than which none stands more in need of cultivation, and none will 

 more amply repay it. 



