10 THE EQUIPMENT OF THE FARM. 



There are many plans of discharging seed, viz., by cups, cam 

 barrels, chains, cylinder boxes, alternate teeth and brushes, 

 screw discs, and .the Anglo-American drill with force 

 feed. Of these, cups are preferred, provided they are 

 properly made; but at the Bedford trials (1874) the 

 difference between two coulters in their delivery of seed 

 was in some cases equivalent to 1 bush, per acre. The 

 cups should be equal in size, all made to a common 

 standard. The seed also requires to be of uniform quality 

 and regularly fed into the seed box. Another point is that 

 the bearings of the seed box and delivery should be made 

 adjustable for uphill and downhill working, and for going 

 along a hill side ; and the box should be so partitioned as to 

 keep a supply of seed to the cups equally on the upper as 

 the lower side. For hard soils, a greater pressure on the 

 coulters is required than is generally available, whilst on 

 soft soils the reverse is often experienced. Telescopic seed 

 and manure conductors, and flexible and other tubes, with 

 ball-and-socket-joints, exclude rain and wind. Guano and 

 phosphatic manures are very liable to paste by the action 

 of the stirrers and discharging barrels in the manure-box, 

 unless they are largely mixed with dry, well-burned ashes. 

 "Water drills for liquid manure act by cups or buckets on 

 the periphery of a disc. Sets on either side dip into the 

 liquid in the tank, and bring up small quantities which 

 they discharge into hoppers at the top ; and from the 

 hoppers the liquid is conducted in tubes to the coulters. 

 In some the cups are bolted to the wheel ; in others they 

 are cast with the wheel. In Chandler's the liquid is raised 

 by buckets on endless chains. 



Hand machines for sowing small seeds broadcast are 

 long and slender boxes carried on a wheel-barrow, in which 



