536 
manageable in farm-yard feeding for cattle, 
but are liable in the field to be rubbed on the 
ground and besmeared with mud before they can 
be mastered; and sections of slices, about 1} 
inch broad, ? of an inch thick, and of the length 
of the diameter of the turnip, are, in all circum- 
stances, very convenient for sheep. 
The cylindrical turnip-slicer, or Gardner’s pa- 
tent turnip-cutter, was invented by Mr. Gardner 
of Banbury; and is generally acknowledged to 
be the best implement of its class at present in 
use. It has become very extensively diffused in 
England; and is so well known to the majority 
of large English farmers, as scarcely to require 
_ any description. It comprises a hopper, a cylin- 
| der, and a receiving box,—the first mounted 
} above the second, the second above the third, all 
| adjusted upon a simple quadrupedal frame; the 
cylinder revolves upon an axis resting imme- 
diately on the frame, and is armed with knives 
_ for cutting the turnips into small pieces for 
sheep; and the knives have cutting edges at 
| right angles, and are placed accordingly above 
one another from the margin inward till they 
form a junction at the centre. 
The lever turnip-slicer is a reciprocating ma- 
| chine, and has, at the end of a trough or hopper, 
a case of cutters of a gridiron shape, so com- 
manded by a fixed lever handle as to cut the 
turnips into oblong pieces. The person who uses 
this implement works the lever handle with his 
right hand, and presses forward the turnips with 
his left; and he may either hold untopped tur- 
nips by the tops during the operation, or push 
forward topped ones with a small fork, or a 
sharp-pointed stick, or a kind of wooden trowel. 
The improved lever turnip-slicer, or Wallace’s 
turnip-slicer, differs materially in construction 
from the preceding, and was invented by Mr. 
John Wallace of Kirkconnell in Kirkcudbright- 
shire. “It consists of a stock, 2 feet 10 inches 
long, and about 6 inches broad, formed of two 
pieces of hard wood connected by an iron bar, 
which is repeated on the opposite edge, and the 
whole bolted together. The two pieces forming 
the stock being withdrawn from each other so 
far as to leave a rectangular opening bounded on 
the two ends by the pieces of the stock, and on 
the two sides by the iron bars, which, to the ex- 
tent of the opening, are thinned off to a sharp 
edge, and thus form the two exterior cutters. 
The stock is supported at a height of 2 feet up- 
on four legs. Two cutter blocks are appended to 
the stock by mortice and tenon at the respective 
ends of the opening, and are further secured by 
the bolts of the side bars. Into these blocks the 
remaining cutters are inserted in corresponding 
pairs, and also secured by bolts. The cutters 
thus arranged, form a cradle-shaped receptacle, 
into which the turnip is laid to be sliced ; and a 
lever is jointed on a bolt at one end of the stock 
and armed over the receptacle with a block, 
which is stretched on its lower face with iron 
TURNIP-SLICER. 
knobs, and which fits loosely into the recepta- 
cle.” In operating with this machine, the work- 
man takes hold of the lever with the right hand, 
and, having raised it sufficiently high, throws a 
turnip into the receptacle with the left; and 
when he brings down the lever, the knobs pre- 
vent the turnip from sliding backward or for- 
ward, and the force of the pressure pushes the 
turnip against the edge of the cutters, and sepa- 
rates it into slices by one stroke. 
The turnip-cutting-cart is simply an ingenious 
adaptation of the revolving disc turnip-slicer to 
any common turnip cart; and affords a very con- 
venient mode of feeding sheep on pastures or 
lawns. ‘Two good varieties of it are in use,—the 
one invented by Arthur Biddell of Rayford, the 
inventor of the well-known scarifier which bears 
his name, and the other invented by James Kirk- 
wood of Tranent. The large cog-wheel of the 
slicer, in Biddell’s, is attached to the back part 
of the nave of the cart-wheel; an upright lever, 
moving in a fulcrum-bolt in the cart sill, brings 
the small cog-wheel into gear with the large cog- 
wheel on the nave; a small wedge at the top of 
the lever, passing through the rail of the cart, 
keeps the cog-wheels either in gear, when the 
slicer is worked, or out of gear when not requir- 
ed to be turned by the horse; the axle of the 
smaller cog-wheel, passing through the end of 
the upright lever which is its only wear at that 
end, goes under the cart and half-way across, 
where, at a right angle, it meets, and, by a small 
pair of bevil-wheels, is connected with the axle 
of the slicing-wheel, with its two knives; and 
when this slicing-wheel is put in motion, by the 
base moving forward, and the cog-wheels being 
put into gear, it turns with great velocity, and 
the turnips roll to the knives from a sloping false 
bottom; and when the cart is wanted for com- 
mon agricultural purposes, this false bottom and 
the slicing-wheel are temporarily removed.—The 
machine, in Kirkwo0d’s invention, is attached by 
means of a chain to the hind part of a cart load- 
ed with turnips; and when the cart is drawn 
forward, the machine rolls upon its own wheels, 
and derives motion from them to its slicing-wheel 
and feeding roller; and a boy or a man sits in 
the cart and pitches the turnips into the hop- 
per ;—and when the machine is detached from 
the cart, and has a winch-handle applied to its 
cutter-wheel shaft, it is converted into a perfect- 
ly efficient hand turnip-slicer. 
Several of the chief advantages of turnip-slicing, 
either in folding sheep on the turnips or in sup- 
plying them with them in other fields, may here 
be profitably stated.—1. The most obvious, though 
perhaps not eventually the most valuable, has 
reference to the sheep’steeth. Pulling and tear- 
ing at the turnip loosens the two front cutting 
teeth of the hoggs and old sheep to such an extent, 
that they are apt to fall out, and, in many cases, 
actually do so. In this deficient state of the 
mouth, it is impossible that the younger animals 
