DESCRIPTION OF A MACHINE FOR SOWING TURNIPS WITH

BONE DUST.

BONE-DUST having been but lately introduced into Scotland as a manure for turnips, mechanics have not yet devoted much attention to the construction of machines for sowing it along with the turnip-seed. Their chief efforts have been directed to the affixing of certain apparatus for that purpose, to the turnip sowing machines already in use; and, as may be expected, disappointment has often followed the use of such clumsy expedients. Machines for sowing turnip-seed have almost all been made to move upon rollers of small diameter. Such machines are very well adapted for sowing turnip-seed only; but when the apparatus necessary for depositing bone-dust has been placed upon them, its weight has the effect of compressing the drills quite flat. To counteract this obvious defect, the diameter of the foremost roller has been increased by raising a rim in its middle, to sustain the weight of the machine; and small wheels have been placed behind to support the weight that would otherwise be thrown upon its hinder part.

Even with this contrivance, one horse has great difficulty in drawing such a machine on any ground, and if acclivities intervene in a field, two horses must be used, which in a work of this nature is always inconvenient, even with the assistance of an additional man to guide the foremost horse. The small diameter of the roller imparts too great velocity to the pinion which supplies the bone-dust; and, consequently, should any large piece of bone, which will sometimes escape the process of grinding, present itself, the whole machine is stopped, and the cause of the stoppage cannot be easily removed, without in the first place removing all the bone-dust out of the hopper. A spring, attached to the inside of the hopper, has been tried to propel the dust regularly through the bottom of the hopper; but obstructions will occur in spite of it. The friction of the bone-dust on the sides of a wooden hopper will rub holes through it; and in these bones will lodge, which it is beyond the power of the pinion or spring to remove, and which will either retard or stop the progress of the whole operation.

All these evils have been experienced by the writer of this article, and to so great a degree, that some years ago when he used such a machine as has been alluded to above, it took on one occasion, as a climax to his disappointments, two men and a horse five hours to sow two acres of turnips. Since then, he has been endeavouring to construct a machine, which would obviate all these difficulties. Success has at last crowned these endeavours. He has now used his new machine for two years in its completed state, over a considerable extent of ground; and he can state that he could wish no machine to perform more perfect work, or do it with greater celerity. One horse can draw it with ease on any acclivity of ground; and in one day it has sown 190 bushels of bone-dust.

This machine is set upon two wheels AA, made lightly but firmly of oak spokes and iron rims, 3 feet 8 inches in diameter, and embracing two drills of 4 feet 4 inches in breadth. The hopper

B is 30 inches square at the top, and contains about 4 bushels of bone-dust. The bottom of the hopper CC is made of cast metal, which will last for a number of years, and which permits the supply of dust by the pinion to be emitted with great precision. The pinions at the bottom of the hopper, 6 inches in diameter, instead of being made like a ratchet-wheel, have eight long straight teeth, which scoop out the dust with much greater certainty than any ratchet-wheel and spring can do. The seed boxes DD are on the same axle as the long pinions, and the whole are driven by a pinion 6 inches in diameter, with 16 teeth fastened on the inside of the nave of the wheel A. This pinion works on another of the same size E, which in its turn moves the seed axle pinion, 4 inches in diameter with 10 teeth, and which is thrown off the catch by the bayonet G. The wheel A passing over a space of 11 feet in each revolution, and the small pinion making 1 revolution in the same time, their motion will be so slow, and of course their power so increased, as that the hopper pinions will be able to break any large piece of bone that cannot easily pass through the opening at the bottom of the hopper; or should even the wheel be stopped by any great obstruction, such as a stone, the man, by using the wheel as a lever, and turning it smartly round, will make the obstruction give way instantly. The bone spouts H are joined together, and may be made of wood, tin, or plate iron. The holes II are made in them to permit the man to see whether the dust is descending. The coulters KK are fastened to the frame-work of the seed boxes DD, and their depth in the soil is regulated by lowering or elevating the iron stays LL, which are fastened to the handles MM, by which the man lays hold of the machine. The drags NN are useful in filling up the ruts over the seed, made by the coulters, especially in damp weather, and by which the singling of the turnip plants is afterwards much facilitated. Both the fore and hind rollers O and P can be removed at pleasure. The plates for regulating the supply of dust are moved by the screws QQ. These screws are placed outside of the hopper to be out of the way. RR two iron stays on one side, and one on the other side are necessary to keep the hopper steady. One bushel of bone-dust will sow 209 yards, along two drills, at the rate of 16 bushels per imperial acre. The hop

per B, the bone spouts H, and the drags NN, can all be easily removed, when the machine is then fit to sow turnip-seed on the land that has been manured with dung. When these are all removed, the seed-boxes, handles and coulters being ali moveable round the seed axle, the machine is well adapted for the sowing of turnips on newly taken in rough land, in elevated situations, or on land in which are numbers of land-fast stones, which would inevitably break the machine, were these parts to remain immovable, as is the usual construction of such machines. S.

HINTS ON THE MOST ECONOMICAL MANNER OF FEEDING

HORSES.

To economize the food of working animals, must be admitted to be an object of great public and private importance. The practices of different parts of the country are not all alike perfect in this respect. In Scotland, which is behind no country in general agricultural improvement, there is yet much to be learned in this branch of rural economy. In the general management and economical methods of feeding horses, Scotland, generally speaking, is greatly behind England; but in England itself, the most approved practices are not always generally known, or universally adopted.

A great variety of articles, as every one knows, are employed in the feeding of horses; of grains, there are oats, oatmeal, barley, bran; of leguminous plants, there are beans and pease; of roots, there are the potato, the turnip, the carrot, and the parsnip; of dried grasses and other plants, there are hay, saintfoin, clover, ryegrass, and straw; and, occasionally, other substances, as oil-cake.

In North Wales, where a scarcity of hay is often much felt during winter and the early part of spring, the gorse, or furze, is frequently employed to feed both horses and cattle. It is prepared for that purpose by being bruised by small watermills, and, when mixed with a proportion of oats, or chopped or cut hay, it is found to be a strong and nourishing food for the horse. This plant is also similarly used in several districts of the county of Devon. And, in Scotland, where the furze or

gorse abounds in many places, such a practice might be adopted with great advantage.

Of the different kinds of grain given to horses, the oat is found to be the best adapted to support the strength and spirit of the animal. Amongst roots, the carrot and the parsnip are much valued; but these, although they contain more saccharine matter than the potato, and although probably equally nutritious, yet, as they require greater nicety in their cultivation, and a richer and deeper soil, they cannot be so universally and cheaply raised, and in such large quantities, as the potato. The latter, growing in almost every soil of this island, may be said to be the most useful of all this class of plants, for the feeding of the horse.

In feeding with potatoes, however, one precaution should never be neglected, which is to steam or boil them before using them. The giving the potato in its raw state to the horse, has been fatal to numbers of these valuable animals, especially when on hard work, and overheated by violent exertion. In its crude state, the potato is exceedingly apt to ferment in the stomach of the horse.

In the feeding of the horse with grain, whatever be the kind given, it should always be bruised; or, what is better still, coarsely ground. The hay, too, ought to be cut into small lengths, not exceeding half an inch, nor less than a quarter of an inch; and a quantity of straw, cut in like manner, should be mixed with it. For the purpose of bruising the grain, and cutting the hay and straw, simple machines have been invented, which can be obtained at no very considerable cost. In Scotland, where thrashing-machines are universally employed, it is recommended that the machinery, for the purposes referred to, should be attached and moved by the same power.

When the grain has been bruised, and the hay and straw cut, it will be necessary to proportion the quantity of each to be mixed together, and to make up a sufficiency of food on which a working horse may subsist for twenty-four hours. And, in order to illustrate this, we cannot do better than mention a few examples taken from the practice of stables, where this mode has been long and successfully followed.

In the stables of Messrs Hanbury and Trueman, in Spittal