26 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



State — and these published at only one dollar a year, and poorly supported at that — 

 Even one bushel of corn is grudged for papers either one of which, if read and 

 followed with attention, would teach them to add at least two bushels to every 

 acre they cultivate ! What care can such people have for their own minds ? 

 What for the intellectual character and power of their own sons in reference to 

 the very business of their lives ? But how can one reason or write with pa- 

 tience in view of facts so calculated to overcome the mind with surprise, not to 

 say disgust ! Well, what has all this to do with Mr. HalVs Brick-Making 

 Machine ? So let us return to that. 



A much respected correspondent and friend having written to us respecting Mr. 

 Hall's Machine, led to a personal interview with him, in the course of v/hich he 

 placed in our hands the accompanying description, as published in The Farmer and 

 Mechanic. We only take enough of it to gratify the curiosity of the general 

 reader, and to give an idea of what the machine will do. To go farther into 

 a description of the manner of laying off" brick-yards, and the details of drying 

 and burning, would be to wander too much from the design of this work, and to 

 occupy more space than we have at command. 



The engraving represents a machine for 

 making brick patented, iu the United States 

 and Great Britain, by Alfred Hall, of Perth 

 Amboy,* New-Jersey, showing a pit in which 

 the clay is soaked, the mill for grinding it, 

 and a moukhng macliiue as attached when in 

 operation. 

 , From four to five hands compose what is 



called the moulding gang : the shoveler, called 

 a machine tender, a moulder, and from two to 

 three oti-bearers. Tliese must all move ou 

 regularly, and keep up with the horse ; they 

 will make from eight to fourteen thousand 

 bricks per day, the number depending upon 

 the size of the brick and the convenience of 

 the work. 



Various statements have been published, for which we have not room. At 

 some inconvenience we make room for the following, and will here say that we 

 should repose full confidence in any statement of facts that Mr. Hall would 

 make about the merits and capacity of the machine. 



Ambrose Baker, of Coxsackie, N.Y., thus 

 remarks : " I have made bricks twenty -two 

 years — nineteen years by hand, and the last 

 three years with Hall's jnachines. I have 

 six machines — running three alternately each 

 day. I have made this season 3,800,000 in 

 five months, with twenty-seven men — at least 

 cue-fourth more than I could have made with 

 the same number by hand. They were all 

 moulded by three men, and the quality is 

 greatly improved — being more dense, and 

 havmg a smoother surface. 25,000,000 have 

 been made with these machines at Coxsackie 

 the past season, and tliey have caused an 

 entire revolution in the brick maiuifacture. 

 The machuie works like a chann. Numer- 

 ous kinds had been tried, and gi-eat expense 

 incurred, but no machine would work our 

 clay successfully before we tried this. Now, 

 none of our brick-makers could be mduced to 

 dispense with them." 



Edwin Wilson, of Rochester, stated be- 

 fore the Institute as follows : " I have made 

 brick at Rochester for twenty years — made 

 1.-100,000 the past season in less than five 

 months, with one of Hall's patent machines, 

 for which I gave $200. I want another, but 

 the holders of the patent for Rochester will 

 not sell me one for any price. As I cannot 



get another, I would not take $1,500 for this. 

 I employed eleven men, and have sold my 

 biick, delivered, for $3 per thousand (it cost- 

 ing 63 cents per thousand to deliver them,) 

 and have made a fair profit. Mr. Buckland's 

 brick are used for fronts, instead of pressed 

 brick, and I think no more pressed brick will 

 be used at Rochester, as those made by the 

 machine present as good and handsome Irouts 

 as the pressed article." 



William Worm an, of Allentown, Pa., re- 

 marks : " My business this season has been 

 first rate, and although the machine was 

 started late, I have made 600,000 with it, and 

 No. 1 bricks too. 1 like the machme better 

 every day, and am satisfied that 1 can make 

 more and better bricks tliau any other estab- 

 lishment in the countiy.'' 



Peter Hubbell, of Charlestown, Mass., 

 states, in a letter to the Institute, Dec. 9, 1846 : 

 " We have been engaged in the manufacture 

 of brick for the last twenty years, most of the 

 time on the Hudson River; but for three 

 years past in tliis State, within four miles of 

 Boston. During all this time we have sought 

 for and adopted many of the improvements iu 

 the business, many of which we have cast 

 aside as worthless. Moulding machines were 

 invariably placed with the latter class, until 



Kecently from Coxsackie, New-York. 

 (74) 



