CROPS. 227 



these seeds, being of different sizes and weights, are, in the or 

 dinary seed engines, very apt to separate in the boxes j and thus 

 the brushes too often deliver them in unequal proportions. 



&quot; The weight of these drills necessarily varies with the num 

 ber of colters, ranging from three to ten hundred weight ; they 

 are drawn, according to circumstances, by one, two, or three 

 horses j the sliding axletree, allowing the addition of any num 

 ber of colters, adapts the drill to different breadths of land. 



&quot; The manure-box may be taken on or off at pleasure. It is 

 a simple yet accurately-working apparatus for delivering the 

 manure, which it does with great evenness, and in quantities 

 varying, as the slip is placed, from six to eight bushels per 

 acre. In the best drills, also, a very important improvement has 

 been made within the last few years, which consists in the use 

 of separate colters for manure and seed. The manure is now 

 deposited, according to the mode preferred by the cultivator, not 

 only from two to three inches deeper in the ground than the 

 seed, but from ten to twelve inches in advance of it, so as to 

 give the soil time to cover the manure before the next colters 

 deposit the seed ; whereas, on the old plan, of depositing the 

 seed and the fertilizer together down one pipe, an evil was liable 

 to arise ; when it was used with some of the more powerful arti 

 ficial manures, the seed and the manure were too close together, 

 and the manure was not dropped with certainty in its best posi 

 tion, under the seed. &quot; * 



At the Shrewsbury meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society. 

 a drill, or seed-depositing machine, was exhibited, of which the 

 approbation of the judges of implements is so emphatical that I 

 shall quote it in full. It was the invention of Mr. William 

 E. Vingoe, of Penzance, Cornwall. 



&quot; This implement enlisted the judges earnest attention and 

 unqualified admiration, from the simplicity of its acting parts, 

 the accuracy of its deposition of seed, and the mechanically- 

 good adaptation of means to ends. Although simple, it is diffi 

 cult to describe. It travels on three wheels, the leading pair 

 being attached to the shafts, from which pair is derived the 

 small power required to effect the measurement and deposition 

 of the seed. The machine is capable of sowing six rows of 



* Ransome s Implements of Agriculture. 



