420 



SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part 11. 



Sect. VI. Machines for reaping and gathering the Crop, 



2722. The horse machines of liaytime and harvest are chiefly the horse rakes, the hay 

 tedder, and the reaping machine. 



SuBSECT. 1. Horse Rakes and Haymaking Machines. 



2723. Itaking machines are not in very general use ; but, where com is mown, they 

 are successfully employed in drawing together the scattered stalks, and are also of great 

 use in haymaking. The saving in both cases consists in the substitution of animal for 

 manual labour. 



2724. The common or Norfolk horse rake (fg. 370.) is employed for barley and oat 



crops, and also for hay. One man, and a horse 

 driven by means of a line or rein, are capable of 

 clearing from twenty to thirty acres in a moderate 

 day's work ; the grain being deposited in regular 

 rows or lines across the field, by simply lifting up 

 the tool and dropping it from the teeth, without 

 the horse being stopped. 



2725. The horse stubble-rake is a large heavy 

 kind of horse rake, having strong iron teeth, 

 fourteen or fifteen inches in length, placed at five 

 or six inches from each other, and a beam four 

 inches square, and eight or ten feet in length. In drawing it two horses are sometimes 

 made use of, by which it is capable of clearing a considerable quantity of stubble in a 

 short time. In general, however, it is much better economy to cut the stubble as a part 

 of the straw. 



2726. The couch-grass rake differs little from the last, and is employed in fallowing 

 very foul lands, to collect the couch-grass or other root weeds. It may be observed, 

 however, that where a good system of cultivation is followed, no root weeds will ever 

 obtain such an ascendency in the soil as to render an implement of this kind requisite. 



2727. Weir's improved hay or com rake {fig- 371.) is adjusted by wheels, and is readily 



put in and out of gear by means of the handles (a a) and bent iron stays (6 6). It Is 

 drawn by one horse in shafts (c), and is a very effective implement. 



2728. The hay-tedding machine {fig. 372.), invented about 1800, by Salmon of 

 "Woburn, has been found a very useful implement, especially in making natural or 

 meadow hay, which requires to be much more frequently turned, and more thinly spread 

 out, than hay from clover and rye grass. It consists of an axle and pair of wheels, the 

 axle forming the shaft of an open cylindrical frame, formed by arms proceeding from it, 

 from the extremities of which bars are stretched, set with iron prongs, pointing outwards, 

 and about six inches long, and curved. There is a crank by which this cylinder of prongs 

 is raised from the ground, when the machine is going to, and returning from, the field; 



