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The equirotal farm waggon, invented and 
manufactured by Mr. Stratton of Bristol, is con- 
structed with a cross-lock and with four large 
wheels of equal diameter, and has a remarkable 
facility of turning in very small space. “ In this 
waggon,” says Mr. Stratton, “two horses, of 
average size and strength, have drawn with ease 
3 tons, on ordinary wendle: In addition to the 
advantages of equirotal wheels and the cross- 
lock, attention is requested to the nearness of 
the top of the body to the ground, by which a 
great lessening of the labour of loading and un- 
loading is effected,—to the great length and 
breadth of the body, by which the endl may be 
kept low, a great object in hilly districts,—and 
to the patent self-acting drag (the invention of 
Mr. Thatcher), which will be found to increase 
its utility. It is fitted with long portable hay 
ladders, before and behind, the addition of which 
enables it, in a hilly country especially, to carry 
larger loads, and with much greater safety than 
can be carried by an equal number of horses in 
carts. It is submitted for competition, as the 
best agricultural carriage for the general pur- 
poses of road and field.” This waggon was 
highly approved by the judges of implements at 
the meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society 
in Bristol and Derby. 
The equirotal spring waggon, also invented 
and manufactured by Mr. Stratton, is simply a 
modification of the equirotal farm- -waggon, and 
differs from one which obtained a prize at Derby 
only in having the body lower so as to increase 
the facility of loading. “It possesses most a 
| the advantages of the equirotal farm waggon,” 
| says Mr. Stratton, “with the addition of springs ; 
and it is fitted with a pole for two horses to 
work abreast, and a portable driving-seat and 
footboard, and patent axles, and is recommended 
as being peculiarly adapted for a road-waggon, 
for the Tlsaretar of produce, as much time may 
be saved by going, when loaded, at a quicker 
pace than can be adopted without springs, &c.” 
The narrow-wheeled hoop waggon, generally 
used in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Somer- 
setshire, admits the use of such a high hind 
wheel as, when the load is proportioned to the 
diameter of the wheels, to obviate in some de- 
gree the disadvantages of low fore wheels. A 
superior variety of this waggon, manufactured 
by Mr. Stratton, is figured in Plate LX. 
The tipping waggon has 33 inch wheels, and is 
constructed with double shafts to go inside when 
required; and besides being well adapted for 
the general purposes of the farm, is particularly 
useful in the carrying of large quantities of lime, 
sand, clay, coal, or similar loads, for short dis- 
tances, since it occasions a saving of time and 
_| labour in unloading. 
The hermaphrodite waggon is a temporary 
but very useful carriage, employed in Norfolk 
and other districts, and formed by bolting two 
carts together. The thill of the hind cart ‘Passes 
WAGGON. 
under the bed and rests on the pillars of the fore 
one; and the two are jointly as compact and 
manageable as if they really formed a single car- 
riage. A very good harvest hermaphrodite wag- 
gon is sometimes formed by bolting a cart upon 
a pair of old waggon shafts and fore-wheels, the 
shafts of the cart resting on the bolster er the 
waggon-wheels, and a very long fore-ladder rest- 
ing above then and upon the bolster, and pro- 
jecting over the shaft-horse.—A peculiar kind of 
waggon used for particular purposes in some 
woodland districts, is noticed in the article Ba- 
vin Tue. 
A controversy of similar keenness and obsti- 
nacy to that about the comparative merits of 
wheel-ploughs and swing-ploughs has long raged 
among both literate and illiterate farmers re- 
specting the comparative advantages of waggons 
and one-horse carts; and, as in the case of the 
ploughs, it is in a good degree a sort of national 
dispute between the English and the Scotch, 
and seems, in general, to be practically deter- 
mined vastly more by prejudice and custom 
than by argument and common sense, and, when 
coolly examined, may be seen to contain a large 
measure, and perhaps not far from an equal 
measure, of truth and error on both sides. The 
merits of it, together with good conclusions for 
the guidance of inexperienced farmers respect- 
ing it, are well stated as follows by Mr. Youatt :— 
“The advocates of light two-wheeled carts assert 
that a horse working alone is capable of perform- 
ing more work than when forming one of a team; 
and that in consequence of this increased effect, 
there is a saving of expense nearly in the propor- 
tion of three to two, or one-third. The advocates 
for waggons assert, on the contrary, that it re- 
quires that each horse in a single-horse cart 
should be of a superior quality, and therefore 
more expensive than those of a team, where the 
average power only is considered ; that the wear- 
and-tear, first cost, and expense of attendance of 
several small carts, is greater than that of a wag- 
gon carrying the same load; and that in conse- 
quence there is an economy obtained by the 
latter. Numbers of facts and the results of long 
experience are adduced on either side, all of 
which convey much useful information; and the 
substance of the whole appears to be, that with 
light single-horse two-wheeled carts, good horses 
are able to draw greater loads, and do more work 
in proportion than a waggon team; that these 
carts are easier loaded and unloaded, do less in- 
jury to the roads, and that they do not require 
more horses in action than are sufficient for the 
work to be performed. On the other hand, it is 
found that the horses must be stronger and better 
fed; that being entirely dependent on their own 
exertions, and doing more work, they are more 
fatigued and sooner knocked up; that on rough 
roads they are liable to be shaken and injured by 
the sudden movements and shocks of the cart, all 
of which a are ES by the shafts directly to the 
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