164 WHEAT 



plate at a uniform rate, from which it is thrown 

 by the rotating force in every direction. The 

 best machine of this type is the endgate seeder 

 which operates at the rear end of a wagon box 

 and is driven by a gear attached to the wagon 

 wheels. Two men and one team can sow fifty 

 to seventy-five acres per day with this machine. 



2. The broadcast wheel seeder which is really 

 a long hopper, containing many spouts or seed 

 cups supported on wheels. In the early forms, 

 the grain was simply drawn through the spouts 

 or holes in the hopper by gravity and distributed 

 more or less uniformly over the ground beneath. 

 In the modern seeder the turning wheels drive 

 a force feed which carries the grain up from the 

 bottom of each seed cup and drops it regularly 

 onto a disk or inverted pan from which it is spread 

 quite uniformly in all directions by the force of 

 gravity. 



Many seeders are provided with shovels which 

 drag through the soil thus covering the seed. 

 The wheel seeder is probably used more generally 

 today than the broadcast sower, but in the seeding 

 of wheat it has been largely succeeded by the drill. 



DRILLING MACHINES 



Contrary to the usual understanding, the grain 

 drill is a very old implement. The first historical 

 mention of grain seeders is by the historian Ardry, 

 who states that the Assyrians used grain drills 

 many centuries before Christ. 



In 1730, Jethro Tull introduced the grain drill 

 into England. The first patent was granted on a 



