Oct. 1, 1902.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
251 
A NEAV WEED CUTTING MACHINE. 
On a recent broilinf?, sunny day, I journeyed up 
through the beautiful Thames valley, branching off at 
Oxford to the staid and picturesque old town of Wood- 
Btock, to see a new machine with which Mr Anpus, 
the Duke of Marlborough's agent, is more than de- 
lighted, for it has rid him of one of his greatest 
annual worries. Every spring the famous Blenheim 
lake yields a vast crop of tangled masses of weeds, 
which give it the appearance of a green field, and 
effectually puts a stop to boating and sailing, and to a 
lesser extent fishing, during the summer months. The 
clearance of these weeds has hitherto been a great 
undertaking, not only tedious and laborious, but 
costly. Now, thanks to the new invention, the work 
is carried out speedily and at a comparatively small 
cost. I should explain at once that this is not a 
machine intended to drag up the weeds by the roots 
or to dredge a lake of mnd, but a weed cutter pure and 
simple, working on the principle of the reapers now 
used by every farmer except iu mountainous districts, 
a boat taking the place of the iron wheels used on land, 
while the horse is represented by an oil motor or a 
Bteam engine. 
It was a short walk from the entrance gates where 
Mr. Angus met me, down the sloping bank to a 
narrow backwater, where the remarkable little vessel 
was waiting us, steam up, and apparently fizzing over 
with anxiety to begin its arduous work of cutting a 
left, channel through the weeds. As orginally de- 
signed by Mr. Hall, it was intended to be worked by 
an oil engine, but the intricacies of these are some- 
what beyond the knowledge of the ordinary estate 
hand, and Mr Angus decided to dispense with the oil 
motor in favour of a 6-h,p. steam engine, which does 
its work very efficiently, and is certainly the very thing 
for a large expanse of water such as exists at Blen- 
heim or for keeping open the navigation of canals, 
sluggish rivers, and the like. In the larger illustra- 
tion will be noticed two huge levers standing up 
diagonally from the sides of the boat. At the other 
end of these are to all appearance ordinary reaping 
knives. These are underwater in the photograph, but 
their position will be understood by a reference, to 
the diagram of a small set of apparatus having one 
knife only. By raising the lever the knives sink in 
the water to a depth which can be regulated, and 
may be anything down to about 4ft. When there 
ia no weed cutting to be done, and the boat 
is simply required to travel, then the levers are 
depressed level with the gunwale of the boat and 
the reapers rise up just alDove the surface. It will 
be seen that the boat is propelled by two stern 
paddles. Between them is the rudder, and as the 
rudder is moved to port or starboard, the paddles 
have a lateral movement with it and help considerably 
in steering which is a decided advantage when dense 
masses of weeds are being cut. The two sets of 
reaping knives do not quite meet under the stern, but 
there are guiding rods which carry the weeds, passing 
exactly down the centre of the boat on to the knives 
and very few escape. 
I had not been on board five minutes before we were 
steaming through a terrible looking bank of weeds at 
a pace of between two and three miles an hour. The 
machine worked smoothly, and wathout the slightest 
hitch. The power of the knives must be enormous. 
A very intelligent man who was steering the boat 
told me that on one occasion they accidentally came 
on a piece of wire cable, which some men who had 
been working a steam plough or other piece of agri- 
cultural machinery had thrown into the lake. The 
knives out it through instantly hut the mechanism of 
the little launch was none the better for the accident. 
It will be understood; however, that knives which can 
cnt through steel cable may be relied npou to sever 
BDvthing in the way of weeds. 
Leaving this end of the lake, and going through 
the tine bridge which divides the upper and lower 
^at«rs, nes^ a ksci 9^ >Y»t$i^ lilies, 
and here again the machine was as effective as ever. 
When travelling iu open water it steamed at from 
four to five miles an hour, so far as I could judge. 
Mr Angus kindly favours me with the following 
notes concerning the particular machine he uses. It 
will bo seen that the Blenheim weed-cutter is a 
somewhat expensive one. In the printed particulars 
of the invention I note that what is recommended 
by Mr Hall is a standard size, having knives five feet 
wide to work four feet or less under the water. In 
these particulars it is said that the machine can be 
clamped to the gunwale of any boator punt, and that 
it can be worked by hand or engine power. Where 
worked by hand power, one man would have to row 
the punt while another turned the wheel which works 
the knives. The particular machine which I saw at 
Blenheim is, however, undoubtedly the most econo- 
mical in the long run where large areas of water 
have to be dealt with. It will be seen from the 
smaller illustration that in the cheap machine to be 
fixed to the purchaser's boat the cutter bar extends 
on one side only. Bat to oome to Mr Angus's notes. 
He writes : 
This machine, invented and patented by Mr Charles 
P Hall (His Grace the Duke of Bedford's agent), Es- 
tates Office Woburn Beds, is in my opinion one of the 
most valuable inventions for weed cutting on tha 
market. Here at Blenheim where we have two sheets 
of water measuring close on 120 acres, it has been in 
use for the last three weeks with most satisfactory 
results. The lakes have been partially cleared of 
weeds each year by see-sawing shackled scythes from a 
punt. This method was most expensive and inefficient ; 
the weeds were cut in crescents, those near the enda 
of the scythes being only topped. 
By means of this steam weed cutter we can cut from 
1 ft to 4 ft below the surface of the water, and take a 
breadth of 10 ft 4 in. In my opinion if the work is 
commenced early in April or the last week in March 
no weeds will ever see daylight. If this is so the enor- 
mous work of bringing to shore thousands of tons of 
matter will be avoided and the weeds will no doubt 
become weaker every year. The weeds which are our 
greatest bane are the Callitrichc stagnalis (the water 
star wort), apd the Hippuris vulgaris — the mare's tail. 
Both are easily cut with the machine in question. 
The flat-bottomed little vessel which carries tha 
machinery is 27 ft 6 in long, 5 ft 3 in broad, and 
draws about 1 ft of water when two men and the 
necessary coals. &c. are aboard. The boiler is 6 h.p 
and this drives a vertical reversible engine which not 
only works the propellers — stern paddles — but the 
two separate reaper knives. 2J cwt of coal a day are 
used, and a man and a boy are the only hands required. 
The price of the machine in the form I describe ia 
£•225. Cutters worked by petrol engines or electric 
ones are no doubt cheaper, but for reliability and sim- 
plicity I cannot but think a steam driven one is best. 
In the case of the Duke of Beaufort's Wobnrn estate, 
the machine resulted in a saving of about 75 per cent 
as compaied with the expense of weed cutting by the 
old method. So far as I was able to judge, the machine 
used at Blenheim does its work as efficiently 
as any machine of the kind which ia likely 
to be made. The less powerful and smaller 
machines will, of course, do their work more 
slowly ; of them I have no experience. The machine 
does not clear away the weeds, but merely cuts them. 
The removal of the weeds from the lake has to be dona 
afterwards from the bank. A rope is generally rua 
out and surrounds a mass of cut-weeds, draws them 
ashore, and they are lifted out by means of rakes. It 
should not be very difficult to devise a machine which 
would lift weeds from the water and deposit them in a 
fiat bottomed craft of some kind, but this would only 
be of advantage in large sheets of water. 
It would be very interesting to know what 
view the fish take on weed cutting machinery. Thosa 
who desire to preserve fish should certainly cut their 
weeds with the greatest possible discretion, leaving 
batQhe^ here aud l9( shelter to (be fish froiq 
