AN IMPROVED MACHINE FOR DEPOSITING SEED AND MANURE
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alexander Melville Clark at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 6th May 1879. A communi-
cation from abroad by William Josiah Ellis, of Oakland, in the County of
Meriwether, State of Georgia, United States of America.
ALEXANDER MELVILLE CLARK, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex,
Patent Agent.
"AN IMPROVED MACHINE FOR DEPOSITING SEED AND MANURE"
[A communication from abroad by William Josiah Ellis, of Oakland, in the County
of Meriwether, State of Georgia, United States of America.]
This Invention is an improvement in the class of seed planters in which a
rotating hopper is employed. The rotating hopper has a number of seed pockets
which are provided with radial opened tubes, into the inner ends of which the
seed is conducted or guided by a series of inclined plates, one of which is arranged
beside each of said tubes. The hopper is placed in rear of a plough or furrow
opener, and rotates by frictional contact with the ground, being journalled in a
frame which is pivoted to the plough stock so that the bopper may rise and fall
freely, and thus follow the inequalities of the ground surface. A sced coverer is
also pivoted to the plough beam by means of a curved bar and follows the undu-
lations of the surface. The revolving hopper is composed of two hollow cones
united to a short cylindrical portion divided transversely by a circular partition
plate, thus forming two seed compartments. Wheels are fixed on each cone of tho
same diameter as the partition or central portion of the hopper. Within each cone
at either side of the partition there is a series of radial seed discharge tubes whose
outer ends are open, and terminate in the periphery of the cylindrical portion at
the base of the cones. The tubes are open on the side next the partition which
forms their fourth side. The seed tubes alternate in position in the different com-
partments, so that two adjacent ones cannot discharge seed simultaneously.
Each tube has an opening at its inner end and a wing shaped or triangular plate
is arranged alongside each tube on the side opposite that having such opening, and
at an angle to the partition of 30 degrees more or less. These plates successively
take up and convey to the openings of the tubes a quantity of seed or grain at
each rotation of the hopper, a seed trough or conductor being formed by the angle
of the plates with the partition, and as the hopper rotates the lower end of each
wing enters the seed at the bottom of the hopper and takes up a portion, which, as

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the continued rotation of the hopper carries up the outer end of the plate, slides down
the trough end toward the axis and enters the opening in the end of the opposite
seed tube. The amount of grain allowed to enter the tubes is regulated by narrow
plates or slides held in guides in the inner side of the tubes and adjusted from the
outside of the hopper. The hopper is fixed on an axis which has its bearings in a
frame consisting of two parallel bars whose forward ends are pivoted to the plough
stock. Thus the rear end of the frame is free to rise and fall to allow the hopper
to follow the inequalities of the surface as it rolls in the furrow made in the plough,
its operation or action being the same whether the plough share runs deep or
shallow. The said bars extend forward of their pivot so that by inserting a cross
rod through holes in the forward ends of said bars, and allowing the rod to bear
against the underside of the plough beam, the hopper may when desired be kept
raised off the ground.
I may employ some other device in place of the cross rod, say, an eccentric or
cam for the same purpose. The hopper frame may be attached to or detached
from the plough stock by simply inserting or withdrawing the pivot bolt. The
apparatus therefore constitutes a cheap but efficient and casily applied seeding
attachment for ordinary ploughs, and may be used for planting corn, pease, millet,
cotton-seed, &c.; also for depositing guano or other fertilisers. It may be used for
planting different seeds at the saine time, but in different hills; also for planting
corn and other seed, and depositing guano at one and the same time.
To cover the seed in the furrow, a hoc or covering plate is secured loosely by a
bolt in the forked free end of a curved or semicircular spring bar pivoted to a
bracket bolted to the rear end of the plough beam, so that the coverer will rise and
fall with the hopper. The angle of the coverer to the plough beam may be changed
wedge inserted in the fork of its bar in front or rear of the
hoe blade to cause it to take more or less soil, and thus cover the seed more or less
deeply.
at will by means of a