MACHINE FOR LAYING LAND. Jg^ 



IX. 



Account of a Machine for laying Land level. 

 By Mr. David Charles *. 



JL HIS fimple machine, which is the invention of my Steward, Account of a 

 and of which I have feen nothing fimilar, appears to me ^^g'fj^J j^^jj '^^ 

 neceffary, even in the moft fertile parts of England, where 

 the new fyftem of drill-hufbandry has been introduced, or 

 even where there is any attention to the waffe of time, or to 

 the eafe of cattle in the acl of ploughing ; in order to get rid 

 of crooked or unequal ridges, without either a fummer fallow 

 by crofs ploughing, or elfe by frequent repetitions of plough- 

 ing in the winter and fpring, which the humidity of our climate 

 will not allow in every kind of foil. 



I reduced fourteen acres of land laft fpring to a perfedl 

 level, where the crowns of the ridges were above two feet 

 higher than the furrows, and where they were crooked and of 

 unequal breadths. Six acres of this is now under turnips, a 

 crop that gives fufficient time to ameliorate the under-ftrata of 

 foil that had perhaps never before been expofed to the in- 

 fluence of the fun and air ; and by the adoption of the North- 

 umberland mode of fowing diat root on dunged drills, it is 

 almoft immaterial where the upper flrata is, provided the 

 feed vegetates, as it foon ftril^es into the manure, and rapidly 

 flouriQies, 



My chief fuccefs, however, has been upon a field of eight 

 acres, which lay in the unprofitable ftate already delcribed. 

 This land, which is a deep clay, and which had produced 

 a crop of wheat from an old lay fod the former year without 

 any manure, was winter ploughed, and lay in that flate until 

 the leveller was introduced the firll dry weather in April. 

 It was preceded by two horfe-ploughs, taking perhaps a fquare 

 of an acre at once : thefe loofened the foil the depth of a 

 common furrow, and twice the breadth acrofs the ridges. 

 The leveller followed, drawn by two oxen and two hoifes, 

 with a man at each handle, to prefs it down where the weight 

 is to be removed, and to lift up the body by the handles 



* From the Tranfa(Hions of the Socifity of Arts, who rewarded 

 the Inventor with their filver medal. The communication was made 

 by I<ieut. Col. Hardy, of Weftraead, Carmarthcnfliire. 



wher^ 



