AGRICULTURAL MECHANICS AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



99 



perforated with holes, through which the seed is shaken by means of a sliding rod, operated 

 by hand with a small lever. The whole is made quite light, so as easily to be carried by a 

 man with a belt across the shoulders. 



Andrews's Broadcast Seed-sower. 



A MECHANICAL contrivance for imitating the hand in sowing has been recently invented by 

 John Andrews, of Winchester, Massachusetts. This machine differs in some respects from 

 any of the other sowers recently invented. In most of the machines heretofore contrived, 

 the g^ain has been delivered from a vibrating tail-board, from which it was suffered to drop 

 upon the land as the machine advanced. With these machines a very narrow strip only was 

 sowed at a time, and their operation was consequently slow and defective. To obviate this 

 inconvenience, and to produce a machine that shall imitate, as far as possible, the motion of 

 the hand in sowing grain, is the object of this invention, which consists in delivering the 

 grain in the requisite quantity to a hollow trough or scatterer, which is caused to swing back 

 and forth round a fixed centre, by which means the grain is thrown to a considerable dis- 

 tance upon each side of the path travelled over, and the sowing is performed much more 

 rapidly than the machines heretofore contrived have been capable of. 



Our engraving represents the sower in sectional elevation, and with a separate detail of 

 the scroll drum for swinging the distributor. The machine is carried upon a pair of wheels 

 A, and it is drawn by shafts to the right. The grain-hopper is at B, near the seat C of the 

 driver. From this hopper the seed drops down through a tube opening at its lower end into 

 the expanding trough-distributor D, having a sieve at its extreme end for the seed to fall 

 through. The distributor is carried upon a fixed stud centre F as a swinging joint. The 

 extreme forward end of the distributor carries a vertical pin, which enters a zigzag scroll 

 groove cut in the periphery of the drum G on the main axle. Thus, as the drum revolves, 

 the zigzag action upon the forward end of the trough produces a widely-swinging traverse 

 of the discharging end, where the grain falls to the earth ; a rapid vertical shake is also 

 given to the distributor by an undulating piece H fast to the frame, and having a stud pulley 

 of the distributor bearing upon it. 



Brown's Broadcast Sower. Mr. Brown, of Lawnridge, Illinois, has invented a machine 

 for sowing seed broadcast. A series of oblique cups are placed upon a rotating cylinder 

 underneath the hopper, in combination with a distributing plate, which convey the seed from 

 the hopper in such a manner that it is sprinkled with perfect regularity and evenness over 

 the whole ground traversed by the machine. 



Improvement in Corn-Planters. 



THE annexed engravings are views of an improved corn-planter, recently invented and 

 patented by William Redick, of Uniontown, Pa. Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the machine, 



