Proceedings oi the Farmers' Club. 339 



form of phosplioric acid, is liberated and passes into solution iu the 

 soil,- and in this form is taken up by the .plants. 



Mr. Wm. Lavrton. — I have heard it said that lime has been applied 

 to land containing iron with good results. 



Mr. James A. Whitney. — Lime cannot neutralize the eifects of 

 oxyd of iron in the soil, because lime and oxyd of iron are both basic 

 in their nature. Lime could doubtless be used to advantage in soils 

 containing the sulphate of iron, for the lime would unite with the 

 acid of the sulphate of iron and form a sulphate of lime, and the 

 iron would be left as a simple and harmless peroxyd. 



Report on Roger's Broadcast Seeder. 

 Dr. J. E, Snodgrass presented the following report : 



Your committee have tested " Roger's Broadcast Seeder," exhibited 

 before the club by the agent of the patentee, Mr. C W. Tothaker. 

 We employed it on twenty-one feet lands. Over these it was found 

 capable of casting the grain used (oats) with a regularity rarely 

 attainable b}^ hand sowing, and much more rapid, while saving much 

 muscular exertion. 



To give a rough idea of the plan of this implement and the prin- 

 ciple of its action, we state that the grain is distributed over the held 

 from a tin pan about a foot in diameter, over which is a little hopper, 

 surmounted by a sack of about three pecks capacity. This pan, as 

 it resolves back and forth from left to right, and the reverse, fur- 

 nished as it is with partitions and flanges dividing it into sections, 

 throws out the seed with a scattering motion, very much as the two 

 human palms with fingers stretched would do if fastened together and 

 still allowed oscillatory motion with the same facility. Motion is 

 given to the hopper, in order to distribute the grain to the pan in the 

 quantity per acre desired, by a piece of wood resembling a fiddlestick 

 with a leather strap attached to either end. The strap is coiled once 

 around a short shaft, fastened to the center of the revolving pan, and 

 causes the desired motion in the same way that the " drill bow " of 

 the watchmaker turns his drill. The strap, at the same time, is made 

 to give the distributing motion to the hopper, whose " shoot " is regu- 

 lated by a screw. 



This novel implement promises to make seeding so much more 

 musical, as well as more facile, than is attainable by the process of 

 hand sowing, that it has suggested the possibility of reversing the fate 



