PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 615 



"by two horses. A transverse box or trough in front contains the 

 seed. (Another similar one in the middle may contain grass 

 seed.) Just behind the front seed box is suspended near the 

 ground, a case of harrow teeth, and, as the machine moves, the 

 teeth operate transversely in the soil. There are six rows of 

 teeth, and they may operate all together, or one-half of them in 

 an opposite direction to the other half. The harrow being sus- 

 pended at four corners, it yields to obstacles and unevenness of 

 surface. The teeth keep themselves clear, and pulverize more 

 thoroughly, it is claimed, than the common harrow. A boulder 

 causes no breaking of the teeth, because they yield. The driver 

 can throw the harrow out of gear. The machine has been tried 

 in Ogdensburg. The inventor thinks the draft is fully as easy as 

 the common harrow. It was patented only last fall. There is no 

 other machine combining the harrow, seed sower and roller. It 

 is said to do three days' work in one. It will be retailed at about 

 $100. The working machine is four or four and a half feet wide, 

 and weighs from 700 to 800 pounds. The roller may be made in 

 two sections. No part is liable to get out of order. The model 

 exhibited is a quarter size, and was made by the inventor. (A 

 member pronounced it the best model he had seen exhibited 

 before the Society.) 



The Chairman remarked that it was very important to submit 

 such machines to scientific institutions, from the fact that the 

 farmers who invented them were frequently deficient in mechan- 

 ical knowledge, and a few practical hint^ might save them great 

 expense and loss. 



CLOTH-WRINGEa. 



Mr. Stetson. — There have been a great many efforts to invent 

 machines for wringing cloths. Some hundred patents have been 

 granted for washing machines. The wringing machine is a later 

 invention. The English wringer consists of rollers of wood, with 

 no yield except from an elastic bearing. But in the passage of 

 a bunch of clothes, while the thicker portions would be pretty 

 well squeezed, the thinner portion would remain dripping wet. 

 Mr. S. then exhibited an American invention, which he said was 

 practically uniform in its operation, and introduced as the 

 inventor, 



E. Dickerman, of Middlefield, Conn., who explained the opera- 

 tion. The machine may be screwed to a wash tub. The two 

 rollers through which the clothes are passed are of india-rubber, 



