Book IV. 



RAKES AND REAPING MACHINES. 



421 



or when it is not wanted to operate. It is drawn by one horse, and, on the whole, 

 answers as a tedding machine perfectly. In the neighbourhood of London, where 



374 



meadow hay is so extensively made, it is found to produce a great saving of labour, and 

 is now coming into very general use. 



2729. The hay swoop or sweep {fig. 373.) is an implement for drawing or sweeping 



37 jj accumulations of hay to the cart or rick, or to any larger 



accumulations. Sometimes a rope is merely put round 

 the heap, especially if it has been a few days in the cock, 

 or piled up ; but the most general hay swoop consists of 

 two curved pieces of wood, six or eight feet long, joined 

 by upright pieces, so as to form something like the back 

 ^ __ of a chair. To the four corners of this, ropes are attached, 

 ^v- -r2??=-=^ which meet in the hook of a one-horse whipple-tree (a). 



2730. Snowden's leaf-collecting machine is for the purpose of collecting dead leaves from 

 lawns, parks, and pleasure-grounds, and has been employed in the King's grounds at 

 Hampton Court. The apparatus consists of a large cylindrical tub, about five feet in 

 diameter, and seven feet long, which swings upon an axle, and is open at top, in order 

 to receive the leaves as they are collected. The collectors are hollow iron scoops, or 

 scrapers, attached to bars, extending across the machine from two iron hoops, wJiich 

 work round the cylindrical receiver, and, as they revolve, scrape the ground, collect the 

 leaves together, lift them up, and turn them over into the tub. The collectors or scoops 



{fig. 374.) are made of many distinct pieces, set in rows, 

 with springs behind each, by which any part of the scraper 

 is enabled to give way, should it come in contact with a 

 stone, in a manner similar to the rake bars of a haymaking 

 machine. The hoops carrying the scrapers are lowered 

 and adjusted to meet the ground, by having their pivots 

 supported in a lever attached to the carriage, upon which it 

 is adjusted by means of a circular rack and pinion. The 

 ^:SLcA_ --'- scrapers are carried round as the carriage moves forward, by 



ineans of a spur-wheel, upon the nave of one of the carriage wheels, which works into 

 a cog wheel upon the axis of the scraper- frame. This apparatus is designed, beside 

 cleaning parks and lawns of dead leaves, to remove snow from the walks, to scrape and 

 clean roads, and for several other useful purposes. {Newton s Journal, vol. i. p. 203. ) 



SuBSECT. 2. Reaping Machines. 



2731. Though reaping machines, as we have seen (133.), are as old as the time of 

 the Romans, one of an effective description is yet a desideratum in agriculture ; unless 

 tlie recent invention of the Rev. Patrick Bell can be considered as supplying that 

 desideratum. The high price of manual labour during harvest, and the universal desire 

 in civilised society of abridging every description of labour, will doubtless call forth such 

 a reaping machine as may be employed in all ordinary situations ; and this is, perhaps, all 

 that can be desired or expected. Corn laid down, or twisted and matted by wind and 

 rain, or growing among trees, or on very irregular surfaces, or steep sides of hills, will 

 probably ever require to be reaped by hand. But independently of the high price of 

 labour, despatch, as an able author observes {Supjj. Encyc Bnt. i. 118.), is a matter of 

 great importance in such a climate as that of Britain. In reaping corn at the precise 

 period of its maturity, the advantages of despatch are incalculable, especially in those 

 districts where the difficulty of procuring hands, even at enormous wages, aggravates the 

 danger from the instability of the season. It cannot, therefore, fail to be interesting, 

 and we hope it may be also useful, to record some of the more remarkable attempts that 

 Iiave been made towards an invention so eminently calculated to forward this most 

 important operation. 



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