IMPROVEMENT IN HEMP-BRAKES. 525 



LMPROVEMENT IN HEMP-BRAKES. 



A GREAT DESIDERATUM. 



John S. Skinner, Esq. Devondale Farm, near Newcastle, Del., March 29, 1847. 



Dear Sir : I was pleased with your suggestion to allow The Farmers' Li- 

 brary to become the vehicle of introduciiiir to public notice the new inventions 

 of aijricullural implements and machinery — a matter in which your readers are 

 especially interested — and I trust you may be remunerated for the expense you 

 generously offer to incur for the engravings, in the increased popularity and still 

 farther extended circulation of your valuable standard work, 



I send you the description and drawings of a llemi)-Gin, invented and recently 

 patented by my brother, Franklin P. Holcomb, under the following circumstances: 

 My brother, who is a civil engineer by profession, but possessing line mechanical 

 talents, was stopping with me at my farm, when I happened one day to be read- 

 ing, from the Farmers' Encyclopedia, what Mr. Clay says in an article he fur- 

 nished to that work on the subject of Hemp-Machines, which is to the effect that 

 no machine had ever been invented, and he feared none ever would be, to answer 

 as a substitute for the hand-brake. I told my brother that he oAved it to the fact 

 of his having been a farmcr''s boy to supply, if jjossiblc, this great desideratum 

 to the hei^ip-growing interest; and also expressed the opinion that we might 

 probably grow hemp here to advantage, if the breaking and scutching could be 

 done by machinery. 



He finally went to work at it, and I sowed a small crop of hemp, which we 

 water-rotted. This we got out with the machine. Still lie did not think it per- 

 fect or right, and went on improving, and altering, and experimenting, for almost 

 another twelvemonth ; and meantime I grew a second crop of hemp for him. — 

 This we also got out with the machine, and had a portion of it manufactured 

 into rope. And, finally, the great difficulty that had troubled him so much — the 

 waste in the scutchin'g — was overcome, and we had the satisfaction of seeing 

 this simple little machine break and scutch, with the least possible waste, at the 

 rate of about 1,000 lbs. of clean, raercliantable hemp per day — doing the work 

 of some twelve or fourteen men. 



But meantime Mr. Billings's machine had made its appearance ; and our friend 

 Gen. Tallmadge had commended it so highly in his Address before the American 

 Institute, that my brother, supposing the final object had been attained, and never 

 having entertained any pecuniary views in connection with it, proposed doing no- 

 thing farther with his machine. But he sut)sequently learned that Mr. Billings's 

 machine, though no doubt an excellent one, was large, somewhat complicated, 

 and costing four or five times the price of his, and probably intended rather for a 

 stationary power to work in a manufactory, than for the general use of hemp- 

 growers, to be worked by their hands, on the plantation, or in the fields. Under 

 the circumstances, he applied for a patent, which was granted, and Mr. Obed 

 Hussey, of Baltimore, machinist, tlie ingenious inventor of the Reaping Machine, 

 has become interested in it, and will take means to introduce it to the attention 

 of the hemp-growers of the West. 



ISothing can be more simple in its construction. The rudest and roughest 

 hands can work it, and with little danger of its getting out of order. The cost 

 of it will be only from $75 to $100, exclusive of the horse-power. It requires 

 about a two-horse power to work it. From my own experience in the use of it, 

 1 can confidently say, and assure my brother farmers of the West, that the larg- 

 est crop of hemp they grow would hold out no terror, so far as the breaking and 

 scutching of it was concerned, with the use of this machine. My clear convic- 

 tion is that it will go into very general use in the hemp districts, and prove au 

 important acquisition to this branch of Agriculture ; and if it does, though not 

 having the slightest pecuniary interest in it, I shall feel myself highly rewarded 

 for the interest I have taken in the enterprise. 



Truly jours, CHAUN'CEV P. HOLCOMB. 



(1045) 



