CULTIVATION OF WHEAT 



67 



Pusey wrote: "The sower with his seedlip has almost van- 

 ished from southern England, driven out by a complicated ma- 

 chine, the drill, depositing the seed in rows, and drawn by sev- 

 eral horses. ' ' In America, the first patent granted on a seeding 

 machine was in 1799. A slide broadcast seeder, which was a 

 riding implement, was patented in 1835; the rotary broadcast 

 seeder came in 1856; the grain drill in 1874; and the riding 

 grain drill in 1884. 



The Wagon Seeder is the best machine that has ever been 

 devised for rapidly broadcasting wheat. It is mounted on a 

 special tail-board, which, when the machine is used, is sub- 

 stituted for the tail-board of the wagon. It consists of a seed- 

 hopper; a driving shaft connected by a sprocket chain with a 

 sprocket wheel fastened to one of the rear wagon wheels; a 

 rotating seed plate in the bottom of the hopper; and a 



A MODERN PRESS DRILL WITH DISCS 



distributing wheel shaped like a windmill. The grain falls 

 upon the distributing wheel, from which it is effectively scat- 

 tered by centrifugal force. In the ordinary force-feed seeder 

 gravity does the distributing, but here the additional factor of 

 the centrifugal force given by the distributing wheel is in- 

 volved. Two men and one team can broadcast 100 acres a 

 day with this machine. 



The Press Drill is similar to the ordinary broadcast seeder 

 in that it carries, parallel to the axis of its two wheels, a 

 seed-box having a number of seed-cups in its bottom. From 

 these cups the seed is brought by feed-wheels which are at- 

 tached to a revolving shaft. This, force feed was the first great 





