226 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



pronounce a decision upon their merits. As every man, with a 

 common endowment of philoprogenitiveness, deems his own 

 children the handsomest; and, though they may be blear-eyed or 

 bandy-legged, will come at last to look upon these defects and 

 deformities with indulgence, or even with complacency and ad 

 miration, and will insist that others shall have the same opinion: 

 so, if we take the accounts which the inventors and makers give 

 of their own machines, we shall find the correspondent exaggera 

 tions of self-esteem and vanity, and shall be called upon to believe 

 i hat each one supplies the defects, and surpasses the merits, of 

 very other. 



;i The Suffolk drill is the kind in most general use throughout 

 the kingdom, and is adapted for drilling corn either on level 

 lands or on ridges, and on all descriptions of soil. It is furnished 

 with independent levers, by which the colters are each readily 

 and separately made to avoid any rocks or irregularities of the 

 ground, and a press-bar, extending over the entire width of the 

 machine, to force the colters, in case of need, into hard ground, 

 with a varying degree of pressure, according to the texture of 

 the soil. 



&quot; The colters can be set so as to drill the corn at any width, 

 from four inches to a greater distance. They also, if required, 

 readily allow of the introduction of the horse-hoe ; and, from 

 being placed in double rows, they admit, when at work, large 

 stones to pass between them, of a size that, under the old plan 

 of placing the colters in one line, would break or stop the 

 machine. The most complete drills are furnished with the 

 swing steerage, by which the drill-man keeps the rows at 

 exact or even distances from those which have been previously 

 drilled. The corn barrel is made to deliver from two pecks 

 to six or seven bushels of seed, per acre ; and they are furnished 

 with an additional barrel for drilling turnips and mangel-wurzel. 

 These barrels, by a simple yet efficient regulator, are kept, on 

 unequal, hilly ground, at the same level ; so that the grain is 

 evenly delivered, in whatever situation the drill may be placed. 



&quot; A seed engine is also sometimes added to the common corn 

 drill, by which the grass seeds and clover are sown at the same 

 time as the corn, and each kind of seed, if required, separately. 

 By this plan, any quantity, per acre, of the seeds may be much 

 more evenly distributed than by mixing them up together. For 



