Improvements in Manure or Soil-fertilizer Distributors.
Year: 1888

page_text: [Communicated from abroad by HENRY OLIVER PEABODY, of Boston, Massachusetts,
United States of America, Inventor.]
Improvements in Manure or Soil-fertilizer Distributors.
HENRY HARRIS LAKE, of the firm of Haseltine Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of
this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
This invention relates to that class of fertilizer distributors in which the material to
be distributed is placed in a hollow revolving drum or cylinder and discharged there-
from through a series of openings in the peripheral wall of the said drum or cylinder
and particularly to the devices for measuring and discharging the fertilizer, and is an
improvement upon the invention described in the specification of former Letters
Patent No. 13,717 dated October 26th 1886, and it consists in certain novel features
of construction, arrangement and combination of parts.
In the accompanying drawings
Figure 1 is a plan of so much of the improved fertilizer distributor as is necessary
to illustrate the invention.
Figure 2 is a section on line 1, 1, of Figure 1.
Figure 3 is a transverse section through a portion of one of the drums on line 2 2
of Figure 1.
Figure 4 is a similar section but showing one discharge cone similar to that shown
in said prior patent No. 13,717 but differently located relatively to the measuring
bucket.
Figure 5 is an exterior elevation of one of the measuring buckets or chambers.
Figure 6 is a section on line 33 of Figure 5.
Figure 7 is a section on line 4 4 of Figure 4 looking outward from the axis of
the drum.
Figure 8 is a plan of the preferred discharged cones and guides.
Figures 9 and 10 are respectively an inside elevation and an end elevation of the
central segmental discharge guide.

page_text: Figures 11 and 12 are similar views of the side discharge segments and
Figure 13 is a modified form of the distributor.
A is the axle having mounted thereon, so as to revolve about the same, the
drums B B and the wheels C C and having firmly clamped to the middle thereof the
perch D, the forward end of which may be pivoted to the axle of another pair of
wheels or the said perch may be extended to a sufficient length to serve as a pole,
and D) is the drivers seat all constructed and arranged to operate substantially as
described in the said Letters Patent herein before referred to.
In the patent above referred to the measuring bucket and the semi-conical
discharge chutes were connected directly together and secured in the same flat
side of the hexagonal drum and the measuring bucket was entirely within the
drum except the flanges for securing it thereto and the fertilizer, in entering said
bucket, was compelled to move in a direction parallel, or nearly so, to the axis of
the drum.
This is somewhat objectionable on account of the liability of an uncertain quan-
tity of the material falling back into the drums and thus rendering the measurement
unreliable, and also from the fact that the close proximity of the discharge outlets
to the measuring buckets rendered the discharge irregular and to some extent
intermittent.
To obviate these objections the measuring bucket E is separated from the discharge,
semi-cones or guides F placing the former in an opening in one flat side of the
drum, and the latter over an opening in the flat side next in advance of the one in
which the measuring bucket is secured, and connect the bucket E and the discharge
cones or guides by the chute or guide channel G, as shown in Figures 3, 4
and 7.
The bucket E is made in two parts, the inner portion, or main body E' of which
is composed of the bottom a, the sides b, b, and the end c the said sides and end
being provided with ears by which it is secured to the exterior of the drum, and
the outer portion E is a cover having inclined sides and an exterior shape as shown
in Figures 5 and 6, its inner side being chambered out to form a conical sided
chamber outside of the exterior surface of the drum, a portion of the said cover at
one end being made wider than the distance between the sides of the inner
portion E¹ so that the inclined sides of the chamber thereof, at that end extend
some distance beyond the sides of the said inner section, and the openings through
the shell d of the drum is cut flaring inward or inclined to form a continuation of
the inclined sides of the said chambered cover as shown in Figures 6 and 7, so that
when the said bucket is approaching the under side of the drum, as the said drum
revolves and the fertilizer falls to the bottom thereof, it slides down the inclined
sides of the recesses H H formed by the cut through the shell of the drum and the
inclined side of the chamber in the cover, and fills the chamber of the bucket E
the capacity of which is determined by the adjustment of the V shaped plunger I
which is guided by the stem l' and the arm I³, and secured in any desired position
by the set screw e.
The sides b, b, of the main body of the bucket are cut away opposite the
recesses H H as shown at j, j in Figure 5 to facilitate the filling of the bucket.
The end c of the main body E' of the bucket E has cut through it a rectangular
opening through which the fertilizer escapes into the chute G down which it
slides, as the drum revolves and is discharged through the semi-conical discharge
passages K shown in Figure 1, or from the ribbed semi-circular guide-plates FF
and M shown in Figures 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.
A rectangular opening jis cut through the shell of the drum at the end of the
chute G opposite to the bucket E through which the fertilizer passes to reach the
semi-conical discharge passages K or the ribbed semi-circular guide plates F F
and M which are secured over the said opening as shown.
The two semi-circular guide plates F F are right and left handed and each has
one. end made flaring as at hand at right angles to the axis of its semi-cylindrical
portion and its opposite end made oblique to said axis, and provided with the

page_text: inwardly projecting rib while upon the inner surface of the semi-cylindrical
portion are a series of V shaped inwardly projecting ribs ³ extending longitudinally
as shown in Figures 8, 11, and 12.
The semi-circular plate M has its two ends or edges parallel, and is provided
upon its inner surface with the bifurcated rib i extending about two thirds around
its inner semi-circle, its undivided portion being equi-distant from the two ends or
edges of the said plate as shown in Figure 9. The said guide plate is also provided
with a series of ✓ shaped ribs j extending longitudinally thereof parallel with each
other and with the axis of the semi-cylindrical surface thereof and with two series of
similar ribs arranged one series upon cach side of the rib h and extending from the
said rib i to the edge of the said plate, the ribs in each series being arranged oblique
to the rib but in opposite directions as shown in Figures 9 and 10.
Each of the semi-circular guide plates F F and M is provided with two ears k k to
receive screws by which it is secured to the drum as shown in Figures 3, 8, 9, 10,
11 and 12.
By the use of two or more separate and distinct semi-circular guide plates over
each discharge orifice the material measured by each bucket can be deposited in a
greater number of lines and thus a better and more even distribution can be obtained
than was the case by the means described in the prior patent hereinbefore mentioned.
The operation of the invention is as follows:-
The drums being charged with the fertilizer material the measuring buckets which
are at the lower side of the drums will be filled or partially filled with the material by
its sliding down the inclined sides of the recesses H H upon each side of each bucket
and through the openings fcut in the sides of the said bucket.
If now the drums be revolved by drawing the machine along the ground so as to
turn them in the direction located by the arrows on Figures 2, 3, and 4, a certain
portion of the material contained in the said buckets, the amount being determined by
the positions of the gauge piston or plunger I, is carried upward thereby until the
said buckets have reached a position directly above the axes of said drums, and have
commenced to move downward upon the other side of the circle of revolution when
the fertilizer contained in each bucket will be gradually discharged therefrom into the
chute G down which it slides to the opening, through which it falls upon the semi-
conical discharge tubes or passages K, or upon the semi-circular guide plates F F
and M, from the several edges of which it is gradually delivered, at points equidistant
from each other and falls to the ground in such a manner as to be substantially evenly
distributed over the same.
The amount discharged from each bucket, at each revolution of the drum, is
regulated by adjusting the V shaped piston or plunger I, in the same manner as
described in the herein before mentioned prior patent.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed as communicated to me by my
foreign Correspondent, I declare that what I claim is :-
First. In a fertilizer distributor the combination of a revolving fertilizer holding
drum, a measuring bucket set in and projecting inward from the shell of the said
drum, a discharge opening cut through the said drum at some distance from the said
bucket but in the same vertical plane, a chute connecting the said bucket and discharge
opening, and a device secured to the exterior of the said drum directly over the said
discharge opening and having provision for delivering the fertilizer in a plurality of
rows or lines.
Second. In a fertilizer distributor, the combination of a revolving fertilizer holding
drum, and a measuring bucket fitted to an opening in the shell of the said drum,
the chamber of which extends both inward and outward from the said shell and the
outer portion of which has inclined sides forming an extension of corresponding
inclined sides of the opening through the shell of the drum substantially as
described.
Third. In combination with a revolving fertilizer holding drum having a discharge

page_text: opening cut through its shell, a plurality of separate and distinct semi-circular guide
plates placed over said openings and constructed and arranged to deliver the fertilizer
which escapes through the said openings in the drum in a plurality of lines substan-
tially as described.
Fourth. In combination with a revolving fertilizer holding drum having a discharge
opening cut through its shell, the guides F F each provided with the flaring end the
oblique rib and the V-shaped ribs 2, and the semi-circular guide M provided with
the bifurcated ribi and the ribs j and all constructed, arranged and adapted to
operate substantially as and for the purposes described.
Dated this 3rd day of January 1888.
HASELTINE, LAKE & Co.,
45, Southampton Buildings, London,
Agents for the Applicant.