THE FARMER AT HOME. 355 



rots, turnips, and parsnips, is a most tedious process ; slow as well as 

 irksome, from the stooping position of the body in doing it ; and, 

 although the sirne objection does not so fully exist in the planting of 

 Indian corn, still in that, where large fields are under culture for it, 

 the aggregate of labor in the operation is a weighty one. 



So great was the object to be gained in doing this work by ma- 

 chinery, it was to be expected that our ingenious mechanics would 

 turn their attention to it. Such has been the fact. Several imple- 

 ments, in different parts of the country, more or less perfect, have 

 been produced ; each new one designed to obviate some supposed 

 defect in previous ones. Thus every new aspirant in this department 

 of agricultural improvement has the benefit of what his predecessors 

 have done. Jt now seems that the Seed Sower and Corn Planter has 

 become so perfect it would be visionary to attempt any additional 

 alterations for the better. The largest of them, with two horses and 

 a m&n will plant towards twenty acres of corn in a day ; smaller ones, 

 with one horse, about half as much. The latter are preferable for 

 common farmers, because they afford all the speed desirable. Emery's 

 Seed Sower, called also the Albany Corn Planter and Seed Drill, 

 being made at Albany, N. Y., with one horse will plant one acre per 

 hour, with rows three feet apart. In using it the operator takes the 

 handles as with a wheel-barrow, and walks erect. The machine 

 making its own furrow, counting and measuring its own quantity of 

 seed, deposits it in hills or drills at pleasure, and at any distance 

 apart, covering the seed after it is dropped, and compressing it after 

 it is covered, by means of a roller, and doing the whole at one and the 

 same time. It would be difficult to imagine how it can be more com- 

 plete, unless one can impart to it the locomotive power of the horse or 

 steam engine, which probably will not be attempted in our day. It 

 is believed that every farmer, planting no more than five or six acres, 

 with Emery's Planter, will save labor enough in a single season to 

 pay for it. 



SEEDS, DISPERSION OF. By the currents of the ocean, the 

 seeds of West India vegetables are frequently conveyed to the coast of 

 Norway, where they refuse to grow merely in consequence of the 

 unfavorable climate in which they are deposited. In this way the 

 plants of Germany find access to Sweden, and those of Spain and 

 France are scattered over the shores of England. In these cases the 

 difference of climate is not so great as to prevent the growth of seeds 

 which have thus emigrated from their native country. On the banks 

 of the Connecticut we frequently meet with plants which probably 

 descended with its current from the mountains among which it takes 

 its rise ; plants whose seeds ripened in Canada, and emigrated to a 

 more temperate climate. 



Winds also contribute to the dissemination of seeds. We have 

 seen how well many of them are adapted to expose a large surface to 



