Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/347

Rh IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 321 It is drawn by a pair of horses, and the price from 18 to 20.&quot; J Turnip drill. In Scotland, and in the north and west of England, turnips are usually sown on the ridge by a machine which sows two rows at a time. In the south eastern parts of England, which are hotter and drier, it is found better to sow them on the flat, for which purpose machines are constructed which sow four rows together, depositing manure at the same time. Both kinds are adapted for sowing either turnips or mangold-wurzel seeds as required. With the view of economising seed and manure, what are called drop-drills have recently been introduced, which deposit both not in continuous streams but in jets, at such intervals apart in the rows as the farmer wishes the plants to stand. What promises to be a more useful machine is a water-drill invented by a Wilt shire farmer Mr Chandler of Market Lavington. &quot; Hia water-drill pours down each manure-coulter the requisite amount of fluid, mixed with powdered manure, and thus brings up the plant from a mere bed of dust. Having used it largely during three years, I may testify to its excellence. Only last July, when my bailiff had ceased turnip sowing on account of the drought, by directing the use of the water-drill, I obtained from this latter sowing an earlier and a better show of young plants than from the former one with the dust-drill. Nor is there any increase of expense if water be within a moderate distance, for we do not use poAvder-manures alone. They must be mixed with ashes, that they may be diffused in the soil. Now, the expense and labour of supplying these ashes are equal to the cost of fetching mere Avater; and apart from any want of rain, it is found that this method of moist diffusion, dissolving, instead of mingling only, the super phosphate, quickens its action even upon damp ground, and makes a little of it go further.&quot; 2 Section 9. Manure-Distributors. The practice of top-dressing wheat, vetches, clover, or meadows, with guano and various light manures, has now so much increased, and the inconvenience of scattering them over the surface by hand is so great, that various machines have recently been invented for distributing them, which can also be used for sowing such manures over turnip drills, covering three at once. Such machines will probably be used in future for distributing lime, which can thus be done much more regularly than by cart and shovel, especially when it is wished to apply small quan tities for the destruction of slugs or for other purposes. It seems quite practicable to have this or a similar machine so constructed as that it could be readily hooked on to the tail of a cart containing the lime or other substance which it is desired to distribute by it. The top-dressing material could by such an arrangement be drawn into the hopper of the distributor as it and its tender move along, and the cart when emptied be replaced by a full one with little loss of time. A cheap and effective machine, capable of being in a similar manner attached to a dung-cart, which could tear asunder fold-yard manure, and distribute it evenly in the bottoms of turnip drills, would be a great boon to farmers, and seems a fitting object to be aimed at by those possessed of the inventive faculty. Section 1 0. Horse-Noes. It has already been remarked that the great inducement to sow grain and green crops in rows is that hoeing may be resorted to, for the double purpose of ridding them of 1 See Mr Pusey s Report on Implements, in the Journal of (he Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. xii. p. 604. &quot;Ibid., p, C07. weeds and stimulating their growth by frequent stirring of the soil It is now upwards of a century since Jethro Tull demonstrated, in his books and on his fields, tho facility with which horse-power could be thus employed. His system was early adopted in regard to turnips, and led, as we have seen, to a complete revolution in the practice of agriculture. The peculiar manner in which he applied his system to grain crops, and the principles on which he grounded his practice, have hitherto been for the most part repudiated by agriculturists, who have thought it indispens able to drill their grain at intervals so narrow as to admit, as was supposed, of the use of the hand-hoe only. But the accuracy with which corn-drills perform their work has been skilfully taken advantage of, and we now have horse-hoes, covering the same breadth as the drill, which can be worked with perfect safety in intervals of but seven inches width. By such a machine, and the labour of a pair of horses, two men, and a boy, ten acres of corn can be hoed in as many hours. Not only is the work done at a fifth of the expense of hand-hoeing, and far more effectually, but it is practicable in localities and at seasons in which hand-labour cannot be obtained. Garrett s horse-hoe is admitted to be the best implement of its kind. It can be used for hoeing either beans, tur nips, or corn, as the hoes can be adapted to suit any width betwixt rows, and the axle-tree being movable at both ends, the wheels, too, can be shifted so as to be kept between the rows of plants. The shafts can be attached to any part of the frame to avoid injury to the crop by the treading of the horses. Each hoe works on a lever independent of the others, and can be loaded with different weights, on the same principle as the coulters of the corn- drill, to accommodate it to uneven surfaces and varying degrees of hardness in the soil. A great variety of implements, under the general names of horse-hoes, scufflers, scrapers, or drill-grubbers, fitted for the draught of one horse, and to operate on one drill at a time, is in use in those parts of the country where root crops are chiefly sown on ridgeleta from 24 to 30 inches apart. With considerable diversity of form and efficiency, they in general have these features in common, viz., provision for being set so as to work at varying widths and depths, and for being armed either with hoes or tines, according as it is wished to pare the surface or stir the soil more deeply. A miniature Norwegian harrow is sometimes attached to drill-grubbers, by which weeds are detached from the soil, and the surface levelled and pulverised more thoroughly. Tennant s grubber, with its tines set close together, and two horses yoked to it abreast by a tree long enough to allow them to walk in the drills on either side of that operated upon, is the most effective implement for cultivating between the rows of beans, potatoes, turnips, or mangolds, that we have yet seen used for this purpose. Section 11. Turnip-Tldnners. It sometimes happens, as when drought prevails while the earlier sowings of turnips or mangold are made, and this is followed by copious rains and forcing weather, that the farmer finds it impracticable to get the thinning-out of the seedlings overtaken as fast as is needful. To aid him in such emergencies, a class of machines has been brought out, of which Huckvale s turnip-thinner may be named as a type. They are very favourably reported of by those who have used them. Such machines, drawn by one horse, and made to operate upon either one or two rows of young turnip plants, have first a paiing apparatus, which clears off weeds from the sides of the rows, and along with this a set of revolving hoes by which gaps are cut in the rows of turnip plants, and tufts of them are left standing at any I. 41