AN IMPLEMENT FOR DRAINING LAND
Year: 1797

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HARRY
WATTS, of Binley, in the County of Warwick, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Nineteenth day of October, in the thirty-seventh year of His
reign, give and grant unto me, the said Harry. Watts, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority
that I, the said Harry Watts, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during
the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "AN IMPLEMENT FOR DRAINING LAND;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Harry Watts, by an instru-
ment in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner, the same is to be
performed, in writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in His Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within one calendar month next and immediately
after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same
(relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Barry Watts, do hereby describe and ascertain the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and in what the same is to be performed in manner following, that
is to say:
When the implement or machine, herein-after described, is to be used, take
from four to eight horses, more or less, according to the nature of the land
and the depth it is to be worked, with their common harness or gearing and
a common swingletree, to which hook one end of a chain, six feet and upwards

page_text: in length, as occasion may require, and hook the other end of the chain to the
hook of the said implement or machine, in the same manner as to a commo
plough. Before the implement or machine is used, the land to be drained
must be examined, in order to find out the most convenient place for carrying
off the water, which must be consequently the lowest side or end of the field
to be drained; then a trench or open drain must be made by hand, with a
spade of a sufficient width and depth to receive and carry off the water into
any adjoining watercourses or ditches from the mouths of the different drains
intended to be made with the implement or machine, and which must be at
least two inches deeper than the mouths of the drains made by the said imple-
ment or machine; then set and fasten your coulter E, in the beam A of the
said implement or machine, with the bottom of the foot wedge or share
parallel with the bottom of the beam A, a sufficient depth so as the foot wedge
or share will cut your intended drain through the soil, and about an inch or
more deep into the clay or strong soil which had prevented the water from
filtering and absorping into the bowels of the earth. When the coulter E is
so fastened, then place it in the trench or open drain made by hand, as above
mentioned, with the point of the foot wedge or, share to cut in the direction in
which you intend to make your drain with the implement or machine, so as
the bottom of the beam A, at the coulter E, may bear on the surface of the
land before the implement or machine is put in motion; which must be drawn
in the direction you wish to make your drain, always observing to keep the
beam A quite upright when at work; and when the drain intended to be made
is completed, the implement or machine must be turned out on its side similar
to a common plough, and then drawn back to the trench made by hand, and
from thence set to work again. When the land to be drained is in ridges or
cuts, with the head lands being higher than the furrows or rains where the
drains to be made by the implement or machine are to run, and there is a
ditch or watercourse near the edge or fence in the land intended to be so
drained of a sufficient depth to receive and carry off the water; then trenches
of a sufficient width and depth must be made by manual labour across the
head land opposite to each furrow or rain where the drains are intended to be
made by the implement or machine, which drains made across the head lands
by manual labour, as aforesaid, must be somewhat deeper than the surface of
the furrow or rain where the drain intended-to-be-made-by-the implement or
machine is to run, in order that the water may have a proper current to drain
off into the ditch or watercourse under the edge or fence, as aforesaid; and
the turf so taken off by manual labour, as aforesaid, may be afterwards relaid
over the drain made by the implement or machine across the head lands; but

page_text: where there is no ditch or watercourse under the hedge in the field intended
to be drained, then cut a trench or open drain by manual labour between the
head lands and butts, a sufficient width and depth to carry off the water from
the drains intended to be made, into which the foot wedge or share of the
coulter E must be placed, and then proceed to make your drains, as before
described. In working this machine or implement, as above described, it does
not throw out any earth, but forms the drains by pressure from the foot wedge
or share. When the implement is to be used in the furrows or rains of
ploughed land after it is sown, instead of drawing the furrows with a common
plough, take out the rolling cutter D, and screw the plate K over the under side
of the cavity in the beam, to prevent the earth, &c., filling it up, and work. it
in the same manner. as before described. When the implement or machine is
worked in very strong. land, and it is found that the same presses or bears too
hard on the thill horse, the horse may be very much eased by working the
implement or machine behind tumbrill shafts, in the manner in which a
common plough is used in strong land; and which said implement or machine
is more particularly delineated and described in the several Drawings in
the margin hereof, and in the several references hereunder written, that is
to say:
A, the beam or frame, six feet long from Fig. 1 to Fig. 2, five inches thick
and six inches broad from Fig. 2 to Fig. 3, decreased in a regular proportion,
and three inches thick and five inches broad at Fig. 3. B, wood bowl or
roller, four inches and a half diameter, and four inches and a half broad, with
an iron pin or axletree through the centre, which runs in two iron plates fixed
to the beam or frame A with a screw pin; C, cock, three inches and a half
high from the beam or frame, with three notches to let up or lower the hook
as occasion requires, let through the beam A, and fastened down with an iron
plate at one end, and fastened down to the beam at the other end with a
staple. D, rolling cutter, sixteen inches diameter, three quarters of an inch
thick at the centre, bevelled off in a regular declivity from the centre, to an
edge turning with a round iron pin or axletree, three quarters of an inch
diameter, fixed to the centre of the cutter, and three quarters of an inch long
on each side of the cutter which runs in a brass box or socket let into the bean
or frame. E, the instrument for making the cavity, sough, or drain, for
conveying the water from the surface of the land, consisting of a wedge foot
or share of an oval or any other solid form at the base, twelve inches long,
two inches and a quarter to three inches or more thick, and two inches and a
half to three inches and a half deep at the base, and terminating in a point
affixed to a perpendicular or vertical cutter, twenty-four inches long, three

page_text: inchestand a half broad at tlie top, seven-inches broad at the bottom; and three
quarters of an inch thick:at the back part; from whence: it is bevelled' off to
an edge, with holes through the sides to raise the instrument, for make itagó
deeper, as occasion requires: The above instrument E and the rolling:cutter
D'may be made either of cast steel, cast iron or wrought iron, steeled at the
edge. Fr two stilts; five feet three inches long fixed int beam A G plate of
iron let into the top of beam A; to admit of: cutter.Exthrough the beam;
H, two plates of iron let into the bottom of.beam Atto act as cleaners to
the rolling cutter D; I, plate,let into tlie. bottom of beam A, to admit
cútter: Ethrough the beam, and fastened to plate..G with a screw pin
through the beam;: K, plate. to-screw cover the under side of the cavity
in the beam Ay occupied by the rolling cutter: Dr.when the rolling cutter is
taken out, in order to work the simplement on ploughed land, to prevent the
earth, &c filling up the cavity; L, brass steel; or iron. box or socket, let into
the beam A for the pin or axletree of ither.rolling cutter Dito run in;: M; iron
pin going through the ibeam A and the cutter E to raise or lower the instru
ment E, as occasion requires; or the saine pin may go through two staples and
the cutter at the top of the beam for the same.purpose: Nwedge to fasten
the instrument E in the beam A. The implement may be used with: either
of the cutters No. 1, 2, and 3, instead of the circular cutter D, and the coulter
or.'share: wedge or foot may be made and used in the several forms described
by the Figures 4 and 5, in lieu of that marked E. The implement may be
made of any other convenientt-size: or dimensions; but. on trial the above-
mentioned size or dimensions appears to answer: best?in most kind of land:
In witness' whereof, I, the said Harry Watts, have hereunto set my land
"and seal; the 'Fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord One
thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven.