IMPROVEMENTS IN IMPLEMENTS FOR PLOUGHING, HOEING, AND SCARIFYING LAND
Year: 1856

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Richard Coleman, of Chelmsford, in the County of
Essex, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN IMPLEMENTS FOR PLOUGHING,
HOEING, AND SCARIFYING LAND."
Sealed the 14th November 1856, and dated the 17th May 1856.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Richard Coleman at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th
May 1856:
I, RICHARD COLEMAN, of Chelmsford, in the County of Essex, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for IMPROVEMENTS IN IMPLEMENTS FOR
PLOUGHING, HOEING, AND SCARIFYING LAND, to be as follows:-
The first part of my improvements in implements for ploughing land
consist in supporting the frame or bar of the ploughing, hoeing, or scarifying
instrument by two bars jointed thereto, which bars are jointed to and sup-
ported from the frame or carriage of the implement or machine. The bar or
frame supporting the instrument is held by these jointed bars in a position
parallel, or nearly so, to the surface of the land, and also to the carriage or
travelling frame of the machine, and maintains constantly such parallelism
when raised out of or when depressed & inserted into the ground; the motion
being similar to that of a jointed parallel ruler. The upper ends of the sup--
porting bars project above the joints, whereby they are connected to the

page_text: carriage, on which joints they move as fulcra. These upper ends of the bars
are connected by a rod or rods to a lever arm or arms projecting from a
suitable barrel, to which rotary motion is given by hand lever, wheel gear, or
other suitable means, whereby the lever and rod before mentioned may be
forcibly acted on to move the supporting bars on their fulcra, & so act on
them as to elevate or depress the operating instrument. A plough, scarifier,
hoe, or similar instrument may be attached to the instrument frame, & so
applied & adapted for ploughing, hocing, paring, or scarifying the the ground.
The carriage may be constructed for one plough only, or provided with the
parts repeated for two, three, or other number of ploughs or other instruments
of culture combined. The carriage frame is mounted on wheels, & main-
tained at a suitable elevation from the ground, & may be drawn by horses
or other suitable power.
A further improvement in horse hoes, or hoes acted on by power, consists in
mounting the hoeing instruments in a frame, which is fitted to the carriage
in such manner that it has a traversing motion from side to side independent
of the travelling carriage, in which motion it is controlled by a rack & pinion,
or other suitable mechanical equivalent, actuated by the attendant. Any
requisite number of hoes are fixed in this hoe frame, & the attendant has
mearly to notice one row of the crops between which the hoes are operating, &
so regulates the position of the hoe frame. from, side to side, by the means before
mentioned, as to keep the hoes travelling in a position parallel with the rows
of crops, independent of the deviation from such parallelism that takes place
in the carriage of the horse hoe over the rows of crops. The rows of crops
sown by the drill being parallel to each other, by noticing & regulating the
instruments between one row, all the others, occupying the breadth of the
machine, being in the same frame, will be simultaneously guided, & will move
in the requisite proximity to the crops without liability to-injure the plant.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters. Patent, filed
by the said Richard Coleman in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
17th: November 1856.
of ..
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RICHARD
COLEMAN, of Chelmsford, in the County of Essex, send greeting.
...
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Seventeenth day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, in the nineteenth year of Her reign;

page_text: did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto I, the said
Richard Coleman, Her special licence that I, the said Richard Coleman, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Richard
Coleman, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
.with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the
term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN IMPLEMENTS
FOR PLOUGHING, HOEING, AND SCARIFYING LAND," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Richard Coleman, my executors or administrators, by
an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Richard Coleman, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement,
reference being had to the two Sheets of Drawings hereunto annexed, and
to the letters and figures of reference marked thereon, that is to say:-
The first part of my improvements in implements for ploughing, hoeing,
or scarifying land, consist .in supporting the frame or bar of the ploughing,.
hoeing, or scarifying instruments by two bars jointed thereto, which bars are
jointed to and supported from the frame or carriage of the implement or
machine. The bar or frame supporting the instrument is held by these
jointed bars in a position parellel, or nearly so, to the surface of the land, and
also to the carriage or travelling frame of the machine, and maintains con-
stantly such parallelism when raised out of or when depressed and inserted
into the ground. The upper ends of the supporting bars project above the
joints, whereby they are connected to the carriage, on which joints they move
as fulcra. These upper ends of the bars are connected by a rod or rods to
lever arms projecting from a suitable barrel, to which rotary motion is given
by hand, lever, wheel gear, or other suitable means, whereby the levers and
rods before mentioned may be forcibly acted on to move the supporting bars
on their fulcra, and so act on them as to elevate or depress the operating
instruments. A plough, scarifier, hoe, or similar instrument, may be attached
to the instrument frame, and so applied and adapted for ploughing, hoeing,
paring, or scarifying the ground. The carriage is constructed with one, two,
three, or other number of ploughs or other instruments of culture. The

page_text: carriage frame is mounted on wheels, and maintained at a suitable elevation
from the ground, and may be drawn by horses or other suitable power..
A further improvement in horse hoes, or hoes acted on by power, consists in
mounting the hoeing instruments in a frame, which is fitted to the carriage in
such manner that it has a traversing motion from side to side independent of
the travelling carriage, in which motion it is controlled by a rack and pinion,.
or other suitable mechanical equivalent, actuated by the attendant walking
behind. Any requisite number of hoes are fixed in this hoe frame, and the
attendant has merely to notice one row of the crops between which the hoes
are operating, and so regulate the position of the hoe frame from side to side,
by the means before mentioned, as to keep the hoes travelling in a position
parallel with the rows of crops, and this. quite independent of any little.
deviation from such parallelism that takes place in the carriage of the horse
hoe over the rows of the crops. The rows of crop sown by the drill being
parallel to each other, by noticing and regulating the instruments between one
row, all the others occupying the breadth of the machine being in the same
frame will be simultaneously guided, & may be kept in the requisite
proximity to the crops without liability to injure the plant.
:
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS.
Fig. 1, Sheet A, represents, in side elevation, a series of ploughs, mounted s
and fitted according to my Invention; and Fig. 2 is a plan of the same..
A, A, is the framework of the implement, of flat wrought-iron bars, suitably
stayed, and bolted or rivetted together. It is mounted on four wheels B, B,
and C, C; B, B, being fitted on the short ends of two levers D, D, the fulcra
a, a, of which are fixed to the sides of frame A. These levers, by altering
the position of the wheels, serve to adjust the frame at a greater or less height
from the ground; they are fixed by means of pins inserted through them
and the fixed arcs E, E. The frame A, A, may also be raised or lowered by
the leading wheels C, C, which may be adjusted in a. similar manner; the
upright shaft connected with the axis being free to slide through the
boss K of the frame A. The elevation or depression of wheels C, C, is con-
trolled by the hand lever F, whose fulcrum is at 7, the short end of the lever
being connected to ¹ by a swivel m². This lever is adjustable, and is fixed
by a pin through arc G¹; an arm H' is also attached to the axis i', which is
fixed by a pin to a link n of the traction chain, which tends to keep the s
axis of wheels C, C, at right angles to the line of tractive force. F, F, are
the ploughs, the frames G, G, of which are supported at two points c, c, by.
pin joints of the pendant lever arms H,.I. These levers are severally mounted.

page_text: on pin joints d, d, in the framework A, A. The levels H are carried above
the frame A, the upper ends being jointed to rods K, K, which connect all
four of the levers H with the upright arms e, e, of the cross shaft L. This
shaft L is strongly supported in bearings f, f, and is free to oscillate for the
purpose of communicating motion to the plough gear. The arms I are
simply jointed to the frame A at g, g, whereby to sustain the ploughs, but
which are wholly controlled in their position by the levers H, as will be
herein-after explained.
The plough frames G, G, are suitably constructed to carry the several parts
of the plough, as represented in the Drawing. In the elevation only three
ploughs are represented, the fourth and last M being in the shape of a
scarifyier, for which the same implement is adapted, as represented in plan in
Fig. 3. In this Figure, seven implements are represented as being of a
breadth more in accordance with the breadth of land usually operated on
during that operation. The elevation, Fig. 1, will, however, equally well represent
the side elevation of the scarifyier, the only difference being the substitution
of scarifying tools instead of ploughs. Hoes and other tools or implements
may also be similarly substituted and used with this machine.
The shaft L, by which the instruments of culture are operated so as to raise
them out of or to depress them further into the earth, has fixed on it a spur
wheel, which gears into a stud pinion i fixed to a wheel k. The wheel k
gears into pinion 1, mounted on the shaft m, which carries a hand wheel N,
whereby the attendant communicates motion to the shaft L, and whereby he
has sufficient power to actuate the whole number of ploughs simultaneously.
The position of the ploughs, represented in black lines, shew them as when
inserted in the earth to the extreme depth, according to the position of the
carrying wheels B and C, while the position represented in red lines shows
the position and movement that takes place to raise the ploughs out of the
ground. In ploughing, the several ploughs may be regulated and adjusted in
any position between the highest and lowest points, so as to plough at any
intermediate depth required. It will also be observed that the wheels B and C,
may be so arranged as to permit a greater depth of ploughing than here
shewn, the principal object of the shifting wheels being to raise the ploughs
well up when the machine is moved from place to place. In order to guide
or steer the machine, the fore wheels are free to turn round on the vertical
axis ', in which they are controlled by a long connecting rod x, fitting on an
upright pin y' on the axis ¹. This rod x is carried through guides, and is
jointed at x to the short arm of a hand lever z, mounted on a fixed fulcrum,
at 1, and which works round on a bar z², on the under side of which are

page_text: a series of retaining notches into which the hand lever z fits. By springing
the hand lever downwards it escapes the retaining notches, and may be moved
round, and thereby impart motion to i¹ on its vertical axis h', and so guide
the machine in any required direction. In turning round at the headlands
the rod must be taken off the pin y altogether to permit the necessary
extent of motion. In ploughing, the attendant walks behind the machine,
which travels with the off wheel in the last furrow of the course before made,
and with the near wheel on the land. Having set the ploughs to cut the
required depth, he fixes the hand wheel N, which, under ordinary circum-
stances, need not be again moved, till he turns round at the headland. His
attention may therefore be given almost exclusively to guiding and otherwise
keeping the machine in its true course. This machine may be drawn by
horses, steam, or other suitable power, and may be regulated by one
attendant, walking behind, who inserts the ploughs and adjusts the depth
of the ploughs in the ground by the hand wheel N, as described, and
controls the direction of the machine by the steering lever, acting on
the fore wheels, as before described. In turning at the headlands the
ploughs are of course raised, as seen in the red lines.. The ploughs are
arranged at a sufficient distance from each other in the breadth apart to suit
the breadth of soil to be taken by each plough, and behind each other, so as
to permit the soil of the first plough to be turned completely over before the
next plough turns the next part of the soil in succession upon it, and so on.
throughout the whole number employed.
.
...The implement, represented in Fig. 3, which is adapted for scarifying or
pareing the earth is precisely similar in all its arrangements, but is fitted with
seven instruments of culture M, M, M, which are formed according to the
operation required. The shaft L is lengthened to suit the greater number of
instruments required. In this case also the spur wheels h, i, k, l, are placed
intermediate of the framework, but operating precisely as before described.
The same machine is adapted for both scarifying and ploughing by simply
changing the instruments. The arrangement, however, must be as in Figs. 1
, and 2, and if a greater number of instruments are combined the same relative
position of the instruments must be retained.
Sheet B represents my improvements in apparatus for hoeing; Fig. 4
being a plan, Fig. 5 a side elevation, and Fig. 6 a back view, partly in
section, of apparatus constructed according to my Invention. P, P, is an
iron framework, mounted on four wheels, to be drawn by horses or other
suitable power; R, R, is a second rectangular frame, placed within P, P, but.
some seven or eight inches narrower, so as to permit its moving from side to

page_text: side equal to that extent; it is mounted on the shaft q, q, and fitted in
gudgeons p, p, so as to oscillate in a vertical direction, and to slide trans-
versely therein. The. frame, R is controlled in its traversing motion by a
pinion 7 mounted on shaft t; & gearing into a short rack s fixed on 'frame R.
The pinion r is mounted on the shaft t; supported in bearings u, u, fixed to:
frame P, the shaft being furnished with a cross handle S. T, T, are the
hoeing instruments, fixed in lever arms v, v, by binding screws w or other in
any suitable manner. The levers v, v, are mounted at one end on cross bars
U, U, fixed in the frame R. The levers v, v, are weighted as; at y, y, to
keep the hoes depressed with sufficient force on or into the ground, but at the
the same time to allow them an independent rise and fall. The weight of
the back end of the frame rests on the hoes, and is adjusted or weighted, to
press with sufficient force for the purpose required. The hoe being dragged
as nearly parallel as possible with the rows of the crop by the horses or other
power, the attendant walks behind and controls the position of the hoeing
instruments laterally by means: by the cross handle S, so as to keep them in:
the requisite proximity to the rows of the crop, as herein-before described,
and thereby to perform the operation of hoeing effectually without danger to
the crop. In turning or travelling from place to place the frame R is lifted
in the rear, and held or fixed in an elevated position to keep the instruments
off the ground. The frame R may be arranged to be at a higher position
when at work than that represented at Fig. 5 by increasing the length of the
hoc stems. The hoe levers v, v, have stops or rests to prevent their descending
too far, which rests being fixed to frame R lift the hoes from the ground when
that frame is raised.
2
Fig. 7 represents in plan a modification of my improved hoeing apparatus.
In this instance the inside frame R has no axial motion on shaft q, q, but has
two such shafts and q', on which it slides laterally in gudgeons or bearings
p, p, and p', p', but always in the same place with respect to frame P. Two
pinions and r¹ are fitted on shaft t, gearing into two racks s and s¹, whereby
the position of the frame is regulated by the lateral traverse, as before
described, by means of the cross hand lever S. In order to lower and raise
the hoes to or from the ground, the frame P is fitted with wheels V, mounted
on levers W, and fixed in position by pins in the arcs Y.
Having described the nature of my Invention, and the manner of per-
forming the same, I would have it understood that I do not claim as new
arranging a number of implements of culture in one machine; but that what
I do claim is,―
First, mounting and fitting ploughs, scarifyers, or other paring implements

page_text: of culture on jointed levers, as herein-before described, whereby they may be
elevated or depressed simultaneously, and at the same time maintain the
parallelism (or nearly so) of their position at all points of their rise and fall.
Secondly, I claim mounting and fitting a frame carrying hoeing instru-
ments so that it may be traversed laterally independent of the motion of the
outer or supporting frame of the machine, for the purpose, and as herein-
before described. .
In witness whereof, I, the said Richard Coleman, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Seventeeth day of November, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.
Witness,
W. CLARK, Patent Agent,
53, Chancery Lane, London.
RICHARD COLEMAN. (L.S.)