HUSBANDRY; 
596 
tion, becaufe much rain immediately after rolling is apt 
to cake the furface when drought follows. Oats in a 
light foil may be rolled immediately after the feed is fown, 
uniefs the ground be too wet. In a clay-foil, delay roll¬ 
ing till the grain be above ground. The proper time for 
lowing grafs-feeds in an oat-field, is when the grain is 
three inches high ; and rolling fliould immediately fuc- 
ceed, whatever the foil be. Flax ought invariably to be 
rolled immediately after fowing. The firft year’s crop of 
fown graffes ought to be rolled as early the next fpring as 
the ground will bear the horfes. It fixes all the roots 
precifely as in the cafe of wheat. Rolling the fecond and 
third crops in a loofe foil is ufeful; though not fo effen- 
tial as rolling the firft crop. Rolling encourages the 
growth of plants, by bringing the earth clofe to their 
roots. It alfo keeps in the moifture, which is fometimes 
of great moment. And laftly, befides-the foregoing ad¬ 
vantages, it facilitates the mowing for hay; and it is to 
be hoped, the advantage of this practice will induce 
farmers to mow their corn alfo, which will increafe the 
quantity of ftraw both for food and for the dung-mix. 
Lester’s Potatoe-Washer.— -This Ample, but ufeful 
implement, repfefented at fig. 6, is calculated for waffling 
potatoes, turnips,. carrots, and other efculent roots, for 
the purpofe of feeding cattle. The ftavecl cylinder re¬ 
volving in a trough of water, fo flow as not to excite the 
centrifugal force, is not new ; but, to obvkte its defefts, 
levers and wheels are added, by which means a boy can 
do the work of two men. The partial motion given to 
the potatoes by ftirring them about in a tub, cannot fe- 
parate the foil fo effectually from them as when the wa¬ 
ter is more violently agitated by their falling over each 
other in a revolving cylinder, neither will they be fo much 
bruifed as by the ends of the levers. If the foil fliould 
be particularly adhefive, the heads of a couple of old 
hearth or birch brooms put into the cylinder will efteCtu- 
ally difengage it from the eyes of the potatoes ; and, as the 
dirt feparates, it falls to the bottom of the water in the 
veflel under the cylinder. 
The operation of the machine is as follows : the pota¬ 
toes are put into the cyl inder or lantern A A, formed of 
two circular boards, and a number of itaves connecting 
them. Six of thefe Itaves are connected at the ends of 
two pieces of wood, fo that they can be opened as a door, 
to put in or lake out the potatoes. The cylinder turns 
round in a trough BB, filled with water and fupported 
on four legs. On the end of the axis of the cylinder, two 
pulleys, as fliown at D, are loofely fitted : thefe are intend¬ 
ed for the cylinder to move upon, when full of potatoes ; 
they run upon a fwinging frame EE, which refls on cen¬ 
tres at F F; when the long ends of the frame are pulled 
down, the other end is railed up, lifting the cylinder out 
of the trough B B; when the long end of the frame be¬ 
comes the lowelt, the cylinder rolls down on its wheels D, 
till it is over the hopper, or wooden funnel G, under 
which a wheelbarrow or balkct to receive the clean pota¬ 
toes is placed; the door of the ^cylinder is-now opened, 
and the contents turned out through the hopper into the 
■■■veflel beneath it. When the frame is in this fituation, 
the iron rods H, which are jointecl to the fliort ends of 
the levers-, form flops to the farther defcent of the frame. 
When frefli quantities of potatoes are to be waffled, 
they are thrown in at the door of the cylinder, which is 
then flint up, and held fliut by two fmall bolts. The end 
of the frame E is then raifed up, fo as to make the fliort 
end the lowed, and the cylinder runs down on its two 
wheels D, over the. trough B, till it is dopped by two iron 
-prongs fixed on the end of the tramp E; the cylinder is 
■then luffered to fall down into the trough, and the pota¬ 
toes, &c. are vvaflied by turning It round by its handle K. 
I is a plug to let out the foul water. 
Middleton’s Hay-collecting Machine. —Thisma- 
rhine, delineated at.fig. 7, is calculated for the purpofe of 
faving the labour of dragging hay together by hand. It 
is drawn by horles, with a boy to manage and drive them. 
But it will firft be neceflary that the hay fhould be rakeS 
into rows, as is univerlally done before the loading of carts, 
waggons, or fledges ; then, in order to fweep the hay to¬ 
gether with greater facility, a man with a fork mud go 
and turn the end of a row up, two or three yards, fo as "to 
form a fort of heap, and then walk on ten, twenty, or 
forty, paces, and break the row, by turning the hay for¬ 
ward into another fimiiar heap; and let him go on and 
repeat this operation to'the end of the row; then the boy 
who has the management of that pair of horfes to which 
the machine is attached, mud draw it acrofs the end of 
the row; and, proceeding regularly forward, he will col¬ 
led! every blade of grafs clean from the ground, fo that no 
raking after is required. 
Of the THRASHING-MACHINES. 
The invention of thrafliing-machines has proved of very 
confiderable advantage to fanners' who do a great droke 
of buflnefs, and grow large crops of corn ; becaufe, by the 
facility and expedition with which the operation is per¬ 
formed, they can always take advantage of a rile in the 
markets, which cannot be the cafe where corn is thralhed 
by hand. They are modly conflyuCted on the principles 
of the flax-mill, and are moved either by water or horles ; 
the fird is by far the bed method. Since the fird introduc¬ 
tion of thefe machines, many improvements have been 
made upon them; a icreen has been added for the grain 
to pafs through into a winnowing-machine, and a circular 
rake to remove the draw from it; as before this addition 
the draw was forced out from the beater upon the upper 
barn-door, and required much time and labour in (flaking 
and putting into order, which by this contrivance is faved. 
In fome large mills of this kind the rollers take in 
about three hundred inches of grain in a minute. The 
medium length of the ftraw being eftimated at about thirty 
inches, and iuppofing half a Iheaf to be introduced into 
the machine at a time, the whole fheaf will be equal to 
lixty inches, and the machine when fupplied with a mid¬ 
dling quantity of water will thrafli live Iheaves in a mi¬ 
nute. But, in refpect to the performance of thefe mills, 
much mud depend on the attention with which they are 
fed, as a linall negleCt in this point will make a very con¬ 
fiderable difference in the quantity of work done. 
The whole expence of conftrufting a water thrafhing- 
mill, including the building of the ihed for covering the 
great wheel, does not, in almod any cafe, exceed 100L 
The ordinary annual repairs may, one year with another, 
amount to 5I. which .added to the interell of the prime 
cod, makes the yearly expence iol. a fum for which any 
quantity of grain, however great, that may be fuppofed 
to grow on one farm, can be thralhed, and that too in a 
manner much fuperior to what can be done by manual 
labour. The expence either of erecting thefe machines, 
or of keeping them afterwards in repair; mud be confi- 
dered by every intelligent occupier of a large corn-farm as 
a fecondary objeCt, when compared' with the advantages 
-that are derived from them; fuch as the performing_of 
the operation at lefs than half the ordinary price, and af¬ 
fording the farmer the means of lecuring his grain from 
being embezzled ; befides, the faving in regard to fupe¬ 
rior clean thrafhing, as has been now well afeertained, is 
not only more than the annual expence of repairs, but fo 
great as, on a farm of confiderable extent, to reimburfe 
the farmer for the whole of his expenditure in the courfie- 
of a few years. Therefore, conlidering the increafing 
fcarcity of labourers, and the recent great advance in the 
rate of labour in all the cultivated parts of the kingdom, 
the introduction of thralhiug-mills into common ule can¬ 
not but be highly beneficial. But though, when the fize 
of the' machine is confiderable, the expence of ereCting it 
may be from eighty to one hundred pounds, according to 
fituation and materials, frnaller- ones- may be erected at 
much lefs, as from thirty to fifty pounds. Some of thefe 
kind of mills have rollers or fmall mill-ftones added to 
them, for the purpofe of crulhing and grinding grain for 
3 . horfes. 
