IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS OR MACHINERY FOR SOWING SEED, CHIEFLY DESIGNED FOR THE CULTIVATION OF BEET-ROOT
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th June 1880. A communication from
abroad by Toussaint Caron, of Aniches, France, Agriculturalist.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co, Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS OR MACHINERY
FOR SOWING SEED, CHIEFLY DESIGNED FOR THE CULTIVATION OF BEET-ROOT."
[A communication from abroad by Toussaint Caron, of Aniches, France,
Agriculturalist.]
In the cultivation of beetroot as now practised the seed is sown in lines which
are parallel and at equal distances from each other; when the plants come up they
are thinned in such a manner as to leave tufts or bunches of the same at equal
distances apart. This manner or method of operation has many disadvantages, the
chief of which are the following, that is to say :-
There is a useless expenditure of seed, for the reason that a portion of the plants
are pulled up when they are commencing to grow.
Labour is required to pull up these plants in order to leave the tufts or bunches
aforesaid, and it should be observed that frequently in order to have the said tufts
or bunches at equal distances apart, it becomes necessary to pull up strong healthy
plants, and to leave plants which are less strong in the said bunches.
According to the present Invention I provide an apparatus by means of which
the beetroot seeds are sown in small lots at equal distances apart in the furrow
made by the share or cutter attached to the drilling or sowing machine. When
the plants commence to come up they grow in strong tufts or bunches, and the
outside plants of each bunch protect in the event of drought or extreme dryness
the central one, which alone will be preserved when the subsequent clearing or
thinning is effected, one root per foot being left.
The said apparatus, which is applicable to all seed sowing machines or drill-
ploughs now in use, is constructed as follows, that is to say:-
I provide a toothed wheel upon the axle of one of the wheels of the sowing or
drilling machine, which wheel engages with a pinion whose shaft or spindle
communicates the motion to a cast iron cam fixed upon it. A groove is provided
in the periphery of this cam, and a roller works in the said groove, the roller being
secured to the end of an oscillating lever, the other end of which is jointed to a
sliding piece designed to control the descent of the seed, that is to say, the
depositing of the same in the earth as desired. This sliding piece is formed of a

page_text: plate of sheet iron or steel, or preferably of several plates united by rods, each
plate corresponding to a furrow, the apparatus being capable of sowing in several
parallel furrows.
Each sliding piece is furnished with an aperture and slides between two guide
plates, the upper one of which has an aperture through it of the same diameter as
that of the aperture in the sliding piece. By reason of the to and fro movement of
the sliding pieces, the apertures therein are caused to coincide with the apertures in
the upper guide plates, and then to disappear under the same, so that from time
to time and at regular intervals the aperture in each sliding plate coincides with
the aperture in the upper guide plate, and seed delivered from a reservoir above to
the upper guide plate by any suitable means falls at corresponding intervals into a
tube arranged behind the share or cutter of the machine, and thence into the earth.
The seed is thus sown in lines and in small lots at equal distances apart.
The position of the shares or cutters may be varied to cause the distance apart of
the furrows to be different, and the distance apart of the sliding pieces and of the
guide plates will be correspondingly altered. The distance between the tufts or
bunches may also be varied by changing the gearing, and so altering the speed of
the cam which produces the to and fro motion of the sliding pieces.