DRILL-MACHINES. 



DRILL-MACHINES. 



than usual, by which means the machine is 

 more easily drawn over uneven ground ; and 

 the labour of working is reduced. 



" Of corn drills" says Loudon, " Cooke's im- 

 proved drill and horse-hoe, though not the most 

 fashionable, is one of the most useful imple- 

 ments of this kind on light dry soils, on even 

 surfaces, and in dry climates. It has been 

 much used in Norfolk and Suffolk, and many 

 other parts of England. The advantage of this 

 machine are said to consist, 1. In the wheels 

 being so large that the machine can travel on 

 any road without trouble or danger of break- 

 ing ; also from the farm to the field, &c., with- 

 out taking to pieces. 2. In the coulter-beam (a), 

 with all the coulters moving with great ease, 

 on the principle of the pentagraph, to the right 

 or left, so as to counteract the irregularity of 

 the horses' draught, by which means the drills 

 may be made straight; and, where lands or 

 ridges are made four and a half, or nine and a 

 half feet wide, the horse may always go in the 

 furrow, without setting a foot on the land, 

 either in drilling or horse-hoeing. 3. In the 

 seed supplying itself regularly, without any 

 attention, from the upper to the lower boxes, as 

 it is distributed. 4. In lifting the pin on the 

 coulter-beam to a hook on the axis of the 

 wheels, by which means the coulters are kept 

 out of the ground, at the end of the land, with- 

 out the least labour or fatigue to the person 

 who attends the machine. 5. In going up or 

 down steep hills, in the seed-box being elevated 

 or depressed accordingly, so as to render the 

 distribution of the seed regular ; and the seed 

 being covered by a lid, and thus screened from 

 wind or rain. The same machine is easily 

 transformed into a cultivator, horse-hoe, scari- 

 fier, or grubber, all which operations it per- 

 forms exceedingly well ; and by substituting a 

 corn-rake, stubble-rake, or quitch-rake, for the 

 beam o^f coulters, or hoes (a), it will rake corn- 

 stubble's, or clean lands of root weeds. When 

 corn is to be sown in rows, and the intervals 

 hoed or stirred, we scarcely know a machine 

 superior to this one ; and from being long in 

 a course of manufacture, few can be made so 

 cheap. But these advantages, though consi- 

 derable in the process of drilling, are nothing, 

 when compared with those which arise from 

 the use of the horse-hoe ; with which from 8 

 to 10 acres of land may be hoed in one day, 

 with one man, a boy, and one horse, at a tri- 

 fling expense, in a style far superior to, and 

 more effectual than, any hand-hoeing whatever; 

 also at times and seasons when it is impossible 

 for the hand-hoe to be used at all. PI. 14, fig. 2. 



" The Norfolk drill, or improved lever drill, is 

 a corn drill on a larger scale than Cooke's, as 

 it sows a breadth of nine feet at once : it is 

 chiefly used in the light soils of Norfolk and 

 Suffolk as being more expeditious than Cooke's, 

 but it also costs about double the sum. 



"Morton's improved grain drill-machine is de- 

 cidedly the simplest and best of corn drills. In 

 this machine three hoppers are included in 

 one box, the seed escaping out of all the three 

 by the revolution of three seed cylinders upon 

 one axle ; and drills of different breadths are 

 produced simply by the shifting of a nut, that 

 fixes a screw moving in a groove in the under- 

 420 



frame, by which the distance between the two 

 outside conductors and the central one (which 

 is fixed) can be varied from 9 to 10 or 11 

 inches ; and that the two small wheels may 

 always be at the same distances respectively 

 as the conductors, there are two washers (hol- 

 low cylinders), an inch in breadth, on the axle- 

 arms of each, which may be transferred either 

 to the outside or inside of the wheels, so as to 

 make their distances from the outside con- 

 ductors 9, 10, or 11 inches respectively also. 

 The small wheels may be raised or depressed, 

 so as to alter the depth at which the seed shall 

 be deposited, by the action of a wedge, which 

 retains the upright part of the axle in any one 

 of a number of notches, which are made simi- 

 larly in both, and which are caught by an iron 

 plate on the upper side of the arms which carry 

 the axles. This machine may be still farther 

 improved by increasing the number of con- 

 ductors to five instead of three; the latter 

 number giving too light work to the horses." 

 (Highland Soc. Trans, vol. vii.) 



About the year 1790, Henry Baldwin of 

 Mendham, near Harleston in Norfolk, a farmer, 

 aided by an ingenious workman named Samuel 

 Wells, then in his employment, improved upon 

 the drill known as Cooke's drill, which by this 

 time was in use in several parts of Norfolk. 

 The improvement consisted first, in making 

 a sliding axletree, by which the carriage wheel 

 could be extended at pleasure to the width of 

 the " stetches" or lands, and by which means 

 another box with cups and more coulters could 

 be used. Thus a drill containing 14 coulters 

 could be enlarged to one of 18 or 20. Second, 

 in making self-regulating levers, to which the 

 coulters were attached; this was done by hang- 

 ing each coulter on a distinct lever, placed at 

 right angles with the cross bar of the framing, 

 upon which each lever was made to swing by 

 an ordinary hinge joint, and had a movable 

 weight at its opposite end, to press the coulter 

 into the soil. By the levers being thus con- 

 trived to work independently of each other, 

 they accommodated themselves to the irregu- 

 larity of the surface of the land, and the impe- 

 diments which they might meet, without dis- 

 turbing the whole. The above were two very 

 important improvements ; and they are both in, 

 use in England, to this day. 



Suffolk Corn and Manure Drill. Following 

 the improvements just referred to, are those by 

 James Smyth of Peasenhall, and his brother 

 Jonathan Smyth of Swefling, who have been 

 engaged in the manufacture upwards of 40 

 years. A brief summary of which is as fol- 

 lows : 1. A mode of adjusting the coulters to 

 distances apart from each other, from four and 

 a half inches and upwards. 2. An improved 

 manure-box and cups, for the delivery of ma- 

 nure with the grain. 3. A plan to drill in ma- 

 nure and grain, and sow small seeds at the 

 same time. 4. The swing steerage, by which 

 means the man attending the drill can move 

 the coulters to the right or to the left hand, so 

 as to keep the straight and parallel lines for 

 sowing the seeds. 5. Various improvements 

 in gearing and driving the wheels, barrel, &c. 

 An engraving taken from one of Smyth's most 

 perfect ^.rain and manure drills is given in 



