2190 



SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part II. 



and being rather complicated in its movements, it will require considerable simplification 

 before it can be recommended. A heavy cast iron roller, with protruding angular rings, 

 might form drills for the beans, and, probably, some machine of tliis sort might distribute 

 them singly or nearly so, and at regular distances. But the best cultivators prefer sowing 

 in drills, thicker than in dibbling, in order to admit of a wide interval for culture, so as 

 not only to clean the surface as between dibbled rows, but to stir and work the soil, and 

 produce a sort of semi -fallow. 



2562. The block plotigh drill is an equiangular triangular block, SO inches to a side, 

 with cast iron scuffler teeth and wooden blocks slipped over them. A field being ribbed 

 or laid up in ridgelets with this implement, is next sown broadcast with wheat and bush- 

 harrowed, by which the grain rises in rows, as accurately as if sown witli the drill. (^Farm. 

 Mag. vol. xxiii. p. 406.) 



2563. T/ie drill roller is so contrived as to form regular small incisions or drills in the 

 ground at proper depths for the seed. It is merely a common roller mostly of iron, 

 about seven feet long, about which are put cutting-wheels of cast iron, that turn round 

 the common cylinder, each independently of the others, which cylinder generally weighs 

 about a ton. It is drawn by three or four horses abreast, and driven by a man elevated 

 behind them ; the cutting- wheels being moveable, may be fixed at any distance, by means 

 of washers ; but the most common and favorite distances is four to six inches. It is 

 said to have been found effectually productive of the principal benefits which have been de- 

 rived from the operation of drill-ploughs, or the practice of dibbling and setting the corn 

 by hand, with the great advantage of saving both time and expense ; as, by the use of this 

 simple machine, one man may sow and cover five or six acres of corn in one day, using 

 for the purpose three horses, on account of its weight. It was at first chiefly used on 

 clover or other grass-leys on the first ploughing, but may be as properly employed on 

 land which has been three or four times ploughed. The mode of working it is this : a 

 clover-ley or other ground being ploughed, which the cultivator intends for setting or 

 dibbling, this kind of roller is used to save the expense. It is drawn across the furrows, 

 and cuts the whole field into little drills, four inches asunder; the seed is then sown 

 broadcast in the common quantity, and the land bush-harrowed ; by which means the 

 seed is deposited at one equal depth, as in drilling, and that depth a better one than in 

 setting, and the crop rises free from the furrow-seams, which are the ill effects of common 

 broadcast sowing, at least on a ley ploughed once." To us this machine, so much 

 praised by some writers, seems merely an ingenious mode of increasing the expenses of 

 culture. By the use of a plough, such as Small's, that will cut a square furrow, no machine 

 of this sort can possibly become necessary. The land when ploughed will be left in little 

 drills, and being sown broadcast, the seed will come up as if it had been drill-rolled or 

 ribbed. It is admitted, however, that the pressure of the roller may be useful in soft 

 lands, and may, possibly, as already mentioned (2515.), keep down the wire-worm. 



2564. The diill watering machine {Jig. 320.) is an implement of recent invention by 



John Young, a surgeon, in Edinburgh. It is used for watering turnips and other drill 

 crops in dry seasons ; and promises to be a valuable addition to the amateur agricul- 

 turist, in dry seasons or situations, or where it is an important object to secure a crop. It 

 has been much approved of by the Highland Society of Scotland and the Dalkeith 

 Farmer's Society. (See Farm. Mag. vol. xxi. p. 1.) The machine consists of a barrel, 

 mounted upon a cart frame, which discharges water from a ball stop-cock, having 

 four mouths (a) which commvmicate by means of a leathern hose, with four horizontal 

 tubes (i, h, h, b), shut up at the end by a screw (c), wljich admits of the tube being cleaned. 



