636 Report on the Trials of Combined Stacking-Machines 
three chain- wheels. In their revolution the cups rise through the box filled 
with seed potatoes ; the size of the cups being proportioned to the size of the 
seed, each cup takes up one potato ; the cup is inverted as it enters the top of 
the metal tube shown on the rii;ht hand of Fig. 12. (The tube on the left 
side has been removed to show the shape of the cups.) The potato then falls 
upon the back of the next block, which is also slightly cupped to receive it. 
From the tube it falls into the furrow, that has been opened by the double- 
mouldboard plough fixed on the lower part of the frame. The small hopper 
at the top of the machine is furnished with one of Chambers's manure-barrels, 
and delivers the artificial manure down the wooden shoots into the two open 
furrows over the potatoes ; the furrows are then closed by the action of the 
four covering breasts, and the land left flat. The small wheels at the side of 
the covering breasts regulate the depth of the furrows. The long handle to 
the right is used for raising the ploughs and breasts when turning on the 
headlands. This implement, invented in the autumn of last year, will be of 
great value to all large growers of jDotatoes, for it greatly simplifies and 
cheapens the operation of planting. The ridges are opened, the potatoes 
dropped at equal distances, artificial manure is distributed in any quantity, 
and the ridges are covered up in one single operation, without damaging the 
sets. The cost of the Two-row Planter, fitted with manure distributor, 
is 45?. 
George Cheavin's Rapid Water Filter (No. 1704) is adapted for purifying 
pond or other water before it passes into the boiler of an engine. The 
boilers of traction and portable engines are very frequently corroded or furred 
up from the impurity of the water supplied to them. An ordinary filter is 
far too slow in its action to prepare water for such a purpose. This form of 
filter may be fitted on to the pipe of the engine-pump, and immersed in a tub 
or pond. All the water then drawn up by the engine will pass through a 
thickness of some three inches of animal charcoal. The filter is in a very 
compact form, with an iron case. A filter that does its work with great 
rapidity must of course become foul in a proportionately short time. A very 
ingenious arrangement for cleansing the filtering material without renewing the 
charcoal is introduced in this filter. The upper part of the centre of the filter 
is occupied by a perforated iron cylinder ; the charcoal is packed round this 
cylinder, and between two perforated plates below it. To cleanse the filter a 
piston is fitted into the perforated cylinder, and by working this as a pump, 
air is forced through the charcoal imtil it is effectually cleansed. The two 
advantages of rapidity of action and facility for cleansing will make this 
filter of great value to the owners of engines used for thrashing and steam 
cultivation. 
1975. Samuel Wilkerson, jun. Sack Lifter and Shooter. This contri- 
vance enables one man to shoot corn rapidly and easily from one sack into 
another without assistance ; it consists of a light fixed frame carrying two 
movable frames worked by a winch-handle and chain. The sack to be 
emptied is placed upon the elevator-board of a frame that rises vertically when 
the handle is turned, and the string of the sack is hung upon the lower blade 
of a knife fixed on the top of this frame. When the handle is turned the 
chain is wound up, and raises the frame with the sack upon it ; two smaller 
self-acting chains are attached to the main chain and to certain levers ; when the 
sack is raised to the full height (Fig. 13), one of these levers acts upon the knife 
and cuts the string of the sack, at the same moment a trigger upon the 
elevator-board striking the upper part of the fixed frame causes the sack to 
be pushed forward so that it falls upon a swing frame at the top of the 
machine in such a way that the mouth of the full sack is immediately opposite 
to the mouth of an empty sack that has previously been hung upon four 
hooks at the rear end of the swing-frame. The motion of the winch-handle 
