402 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
not be planted because the whole dropping mechanism is too small. To 
plant potatoes, a cylinder with arms similar to the cotton planter is 
required, but placed higher in the hopper. Each of these arms (being 
sharp at the end) picks - up a potato as they revolve, the cylinder being 
so arranged as to allow its arms to pass through the side of the hopper 
_ (instead “of the bottom, as in the cotton planter,) into a tube or spout 
where the potatoes are deposited by the arms of the cylinder, and thence 
eonveyed to the ground. 
POTATO DIGGERS. \ 
There is no agricultural implement (except, perhaps, the steam plow) 
requiring more improvement than the potato-digger, it being very doubt- 
fal if there ever was one constructed which can be pronounced a sue- 
cess, among the many hundreds upon which a vast amount of money 
and labor have been bestowed, although reports have been'received of 
satisfactory work under favorable circumstances. At the beginning of 
the present century we find that in England the mode of taking up the 
potatoes depended very much upon the manner in which the seed was 
planted. If planted in drills, a furrow was turned from each side of 
the drill, and then that part of the drill in which the potatoes were lodged, 
was turned over with aplow; or after the furrows were turned from each 
side of the drill, the middle was turned over with a hand-fork. At 
other times a spade was used for the same purpose. If the potatoes 
were planted in hills, which was rarely done, a fork or spade was the 
only implement used. There was also used in England, about the be- 
ginning of the present century, “an implement for teari ing the furrow 
to pieces and laying bare the mass of the crop,” consisting of the ordi- 
nary plow-beam and handles with a crosspiece attached ‘to the rear of 
the beam, to which was affixed a diagonal harrow having three or four 
vertical teeth: After this harrow had been once over the ground, the 
potatoes unearthed by the operation were picked up, and then’ the 
ground was cross-hai rrowed and the potatoes uncovered by this second 
harrowing were Hithered. While at this time, in our own country, po- 
tatoes were unearthed generally by the common hoe, we believe the 
idea of digging, separating, and gathering potatoes by one opera- 
tion—by passing once over the ground—originated here, and the 
machine by which the same was to be done was invented and con- 
structed by an American. While the first efforts in this direction were 
not entirely successful, those who have the most nearly attained suecess 
within the past few years have employed the same mechanism, operat- 
ing upon the same principle, and constructed in substantially the same 
manner, as the first machine made for this purpose. 
Among the first inventors in this line was Levi Rice, of Robbinston, 
Washington County, Maine, who obtained a patent for his machine 
June 29, "1833, which he describes as “a machine for furrowing, dropping 
and covering, and for digging potatoes.” The machine consists of a 
scoop cr shovel at the extreme front of the frame, which raises the pe- 
atoes and dirt together, which, as the machine is moved forward, pass on 
an endless belt or apron, while a roller shakes thé same, causing the 
dirt to fall through the open belt or apron to the ground, while the po- 
tatoes pass along to the end of the apron and fall “into a box placed on 
the rear of the frame. The rear of the frame is pa eet oe by an axle- 
tree and wheels, the wheels containing spikes to keep them from slip- 
ping. The apron is moved by cog wheels, one of which is placed on the 
axletree and the other on a shaft or cylinder above, around which the 
apron moves. There are leyers by which the shovel or scoop is ‘regu- 
