IM- PROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED FOR TILLING AND CULTIVATING LAND
Year: 1864

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Archibald Macrae at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 1st April
1864.
I, ALEXANDER MACRAE, of the Priory, Kemerton, in the County of
Gloucester, M.D., do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE EMPLOYED FOR TILLING AND
CULTIVATING LAND," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in apparatus to be employed
for tilling and cultivating land. The apparatus consists of an oblong frame
having cultivating tines or teeth mounted therein. Tines or grubber teeth
are arranged transversely about the centre of the length of the frame. They
are mounted and fixed on a frame which is capable of being raised and
lowered when required by means of a horizontal shaft on which is a toothed
quadrant into which a screw or worm mounted upon a vertical axis works; both
ends of the axis of the toothed quadrant have mounted thereon a bell crank lever;
these are connected by connecting rods to the hinder end of the frame carrying
the tines or grubber teeth, the other end of such frame being hinged or pin jointed
to the fore part of the oblong frame of the machine or implement; on the upper
part of the vertical axis of the screw or worm already referred to a hand wheel
is keyed, by turning which the frame carrying the tines or grubber teeth may
readily be raised out of or lowered into the earth. Behind the row or rows
of cultivating tines or grubbers, and parallel with them, but towards the hinder
portion of the frame of the machine is mounted a horizontal shaft or axis, on

page_text: which are fixed a series of metal discs. Each disc has a number of cultivating
tines of a curved or straight form placed and fixed equidistant radially around
it. The shaft which carries these discs is mounted in bearings which are
made capable of being shifted up and down in guides formed for that purpose
in the framing of the machine. The apparatus already described for raising
and lowering the grubber teeth or tines also serves at the same action to raise
and lower this axis, its bearings being connected therewith by suitable rods
and levers for that purpose. On one end of this axis a chain wheel is fixed
which receives a chain by which it is driven as herein-after explained. At
the front end of the framing of the machine, mounted in bearings rigidly fixed
thereto is a shaft or axis which it is preferred to make of a square form. Upon
this square shaft a short cylinder is mounted, it is hollowed to fit the square
shaft on which it is made at times to slide. A guide frame arranged in such
manner as to slide in front of the frame of the machine from one side thereof
to the other is employed for the purpose of changing the line of draught of
the hauling ropes. This frame carries four guide pulleys, and is mounted and
works in suitable guides carried by the front end of the framing of the machine,
and racks are fixed at the upper and lower portions of the front part thereof,
into which pinions take mounted on a vertical axis carried by the sliding or
guide frame, and at the upper part of the vertical axis on which the pinions
are mounted a hand wheel is fixed, by turning which the guide frame may be
moved from one side of the machine to the other. Upon the short cylinder
or hollow axis previously spoken of are mounted two hauling pulleys or drums
one at either end thereof. They are prevented from approaching one another
by a portion of the nave of each pulley or drum overlapping partially each end
of the cylinder, and they are prevented from slipping off the cylinder by two
rigid bars projecting from the sliding frame; each of the bars terminates in
a semicircular edge fitting into a deep wall-sided groove surrounding the nave
of each of the pulleys. The object of this arrangement is to cause to move
together the sliding frame and the hauling drums, as well as the short cylinder
upon which they are mounted. These two drums or pulleys are grooved
suitably for receiving the hauling ropes around them, and are mounted loosely
on their axis, but they may either of them be made fast thereon at will by
means of a double clutch which is made to engage with either the one or the
other (or to remain clear of both) by means of a forked lever. This mode of
causing the short cylinder with the hauling pulleys or drums to slido on its
bar or axis from one side of the machine to the other serves to guide or steer
the machine as it travels across the field, as well as to assist it in turning at
the end of every bout. The short cylinder on which the hauling drums or

page_text: pulleys are fixed is at all times caused to revolve with its bar or axis on which
it slides. On one end of the shaft or square bar a chain wheel is fixed, which
by a chain passing around it, and a chain wheel on the axis of the cultivating
tives fixed to the discs before mentioned, gives motion thereto, causing them
to revolve and dig up the earth as the machine is hauled or driven across the
field or land to be cultivated. One of the drums or pulleys has the hauling
rope from.the engine passed around it for working in one direction across the
land, while the other druni or pulley receives the hauling rope from the engine
when the implement is hauled in the opposite direction, the engine and fixed
anchor moving forwards on the headland a proper distance equal to the width
of land operated upon at each bout of the machine. Near to each end of the
square shaft or axis are two broad rollers or wheels which support the front
end of the implement: These two rollers revolve independently of their axis.
Another pair of rollers or castor wheels is employed at the front end of the
machine, and while the implement is at work these rollers or wheels are raised
up from off the land, but at the end of each bout they are brought down and
made to bear the weight of the front end of the machine while it is being
turned round, their vertical stems being operated upon for that purpose by
bell cranks set on a cross shaft having a toothed quadrant worked by a screw
or worm, the vertical shaft of which is provided with a hand wheel for turning
it. After the machine has been turned round these castor wheels are again
raised, and the rollers previously named again bear the front end of the machine
as before. In front of the machine are also two beans supporting two hori-
zontal guide wheels, they also are of use to assist in turning the machine round
at the headland. The hinder part of the machine is supported by two broad
wheels or rollers, the axis of which having keyed thereon a pulley gives motion
by means of a chain passing around that and another pulley to small drums
geared with the axles of the last-named pulley. These drums have teeth on
them to clear from the revolving cultivating tines, weeds, or other materials,
which might otherwise stick to and choke them, and so render them ineffective
and also to gather weeds from the land. The cultivator or implement is
intended to be worked in the following manner:-A rope is made fast at the
opposite side of the field to that at which the machine is placed at starting ;
the other end of the rope is to be taken across the field to the machine and
placed in the groove around one of the hauling drums or pulleys, and then
taken back and made fast to the windlass which is worked and carried by the
steam engine. The hauling drum with the rope thus passed round it is made
fast on its square axis by means of the forked lever and clutch before mentioned.
The machine as it is drawn along causes that drum or pulley to revolve, and

page_text: also the square axis as the rope travels round it, by means of which a rapid
rotatory motion is imparted to the shaft carrying the cultivating tines by means
of the chain and chain wheels. As soon as the implement begins to move the
teeth or tines are lowered so as to enter the land to the requisite depth. The
straight rows of grubber teeth break the earth up into large clods, and the
revolving teeth or tines on the discs break the clods up more minutely as
the rollers revolve, which bear the hinder portion of the machine, they give
motion to the clearing instruments to free the tines from weeds which are
thrown thereby out at the rear end of the machine. Another rope is made
fast to a moveable anchor placed at the opposite end of the field or headland
to where the engine is stationed, the end of this rope is brought across the
field to the machine and passed around the other hauling drum or pulley, and
it is then taken back to the anchor and passed round a pulley and brought
round the side of the field to another drum of the windlass and made fast, so
that when the machine or implement has completed one bout across the field
the other drum is by the clutch made loose on its axis, the cultivator tines
-raised, and the fore part of the machine raised on the castor wheels as ex-
plained. The engine is then reversed, the guiding frame at the front of the
machine brought over to the other side of the machine, and the hauling then
commences with the last-mentioned rope, the machine will be turned round on
the headland, and as soon as the machine has arrived at the proper position
the machine will be moved back in the other direction, and so on, changing
from one rope and hauling pulley to the other at the end of every bout, the
engine and windlass moving forward a proper distance each time the imple-
ment crosses the field.