SOME IMPROVED MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE ATTACHED OR ANNEXED TO HARROWS, WHEREBY THOSE IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY WILL EXECUTE THEIR WORK TO MUCH GREATER ADVANTAGE THAN BY ANY MODE HITHERTO PRACTISED, AND FROM THE USE OF WHICH WILL RESULT A CONSIDERABLE DECREASE OF EXPENCE, BEING CALCULATED TO PROMOTE AN EFFECTUAL SAVING IN TIME, LABOUR, AND THE QUANTITY OF GRAIN SOWN
Year: 1801

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I WILLIAM
WILDE, of West Leake, in the County of Nottingham, Farmer and Grazier,
send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Seventeenth day of
February, in the forty-first year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
William Wilde, His especial licence that I, the said William Wilde, 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 SOME IMPROVED MACHINERY OR APPARATUS TO BE ATTACHED OR
ANNEXED TO HARROWS, WHEREBY THOSE IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY WILL EXECUTE
THEIR WORK TO MUCH GREATER ADVANTAGE THAN BY ANY MODE HITHERTO PRACTISED,
AND FROM THE USE OF WHICH WILL RESULT A CONSIDERABLE DECREASE OF EXPENCE,
BEING CALCULATED TO PROMOTE AN EFFECTUAL SAVING IN TIME, LABOUR, AND THE
QUANTITY OF GRAIN SOWN;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a
proviso, obliging me, the said William Wilde, by an instrument 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, to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar month 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.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Wilde, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
the plans hereunto annexed, and the following description thereof, that is
to say-
A, A, the shafts with the customary appendages, the two rings to hook the
second horse to being here placed in the under part of each shaft at B, B.
The joints, or tenant-and-mortice; between the shafts and cross piece or spend-
ing E, are secured by means of iron plates both above and below, with screw
pins through the wood and plates. H is another cross piece, into which the
ends of the shafts are fastened by tenant and mortice, and secured by iron
plates, as before. At cach extremity of. El is also fixed by screw pins the iron
cap O. In this cap is a square hole or space, which must also be continued
through the ends of H, of such a size as to admit the square of the wheel iron
N freely to enter, and, by means of a screw at the ends of the cap, pressing
tight against N (as at W, where O, N, and C are represented as put together
for use). The carriage, or 'conductor may be shifted higher or lower, as
occasion may require, to raise or fall the fore part of the harrows, so as to keep
them level on the surface of the land. F, F, is a third cross piece or pole,.
which lies close against that part of the wheel irons which passes through the
spaces at the ends of H, and is kept steady in its place, by a screw pin,
descending through the centre of it into a small piece of wood Y, which is
nailed to the centre of H, for the purpose of receiving such screw pin. It has
several holes at each end' that the apparatus may be shifted, and the harrows
drawn at different width, as circumstances may require; and in order to give
greater strength to this part of the pole, an additional piece of wood is fixed,
extending from each extremity to the wheel iron N. R, R, are swingletrees, to
be attached to any of the holes in the pole F, F, by the chains P, P, P,'P, the
ends of which are linked on to books at the end of clasp V, which is made to
hold to the pole by means of pins passing through the holes in the pole and
the two ends of the clasp; Q, Q, Q, Q, chains by which the harrows are
áttached to the ends of the swingletrees, formed of different lengths to give the
harrows their proper direction in working. They are fastened to the harrows
in the same manner as the chains 'P, P, P, P, to the pole. Round the swingle-
trees near each extremity is fixed a metal hoop or collar, through which, as
well as through the swingletree, must be a hole to admit a screw pin. At
the plain end of this pin-must be a hole or loop, into which the end link of the
chain is to be welded or otherwise made fast. The screw end of the pin
passing through the hoop or collar on the swingletree, is secured on the
:

page_text: opposite side by a nut or knob, into which it screws, and on turning which the
chains are regulated to great nicety, and made to recede or advance at pleasure
when the taking up or letting out of a whole link would be more than neces-
sary, and tend to disturb. that exactness which is requisite to promote the
perfect operations of the apparatus. S, S, S, S, S, S, iron plates or stretchers;
the external plates to be made of such a length as to preserve the same
distance between the harrows as the bulls of the harrows are one from
another. The two middle plates must be somewhat longer, but put on across
or in a different line from the four others, and are intended. to prevent an
irregular or zig-zag motion, so that the harrows, cannot go forwards and back-
wards more than is necessary. All these plates are to be attached to the
harrows by means of bossed iron pins U, which go through them and the
harrow bulls, and are screwed beneath by a nut; they have a colter at
top, and must be of sufficient length to admit the harrows to have play,
and to rise. and fall according to the variations in the land. T is another
plate, to be attached in the same manner to the innermost bull of each
inside harrow. It has a number of holes in it, so as to correspond with any
alteration made in the holes of F, F, in order that the harrows' may be so
regulated as to miss the furrows when the land will not bear the horses; or if
the lanil is dry, and in such a state as that the horses can go abreast, that. the
inside harrows may be brought closer together, and no land be missed. K, K;
the long swingletree, to each end of which is fixed, by chains and clasps V, the
two smaller ones at their centres. When the horses go abreast it is attached
to E by means of a strong pin. U, which must be made of sucli a length only
as that the colter shall appear just above the surface at L, that there may not
be any perpendicular play or up and down motion in K, as is purposely the
case with the harrows as connected by the plates S. The hole at L is secured
with plates of iron above and below to keep the wood from galling. The
strength of every part of the apparatus must be proportioned to the resistance
required, which to a workman can be no difficulty to ascertain and properly
provide for. The plans are drawn upon a scale of half an inch to a foot,
and the apparatus and harrows are here calculated for lands of five yards wide.
(exclusive of the furrows). If, however, lands should he more or less exten-
sive, the apparatus and harrows must of course be made of correspondent
dimensions. The several advantages proposed by the use of this apparatus
are, first the regular and compleat manner in which harrows are made to
perform their work. In the general mode of harrowing, there is, owing to the
hanging sides of the lands, a disposition in the harrow to swerve, and the

page_text: inequalities of the ground invariably produce a zig-zag or irregular motion,
tending to impede or frustrate the profitable operation of the harrow. It
frequently also happens that one side of a harrow, or one harrow, where two
are used together, has more work to perform than the other, which causes the
same irregular motion, but by observing the combined-influence P, Q, S, T, it
will appear that these objections are effectually obviated, and which on trial
will become manifest. 2dly, in a wet seed time, when the land is in such a
state that it will not bear the horses, and in case of their treading the land
sown the corn so trod becomes buried and lost, provision is made by this
apparatus, that in case of rainy seasons, and where the land is moist or tender
from any other cause, the horses go only along the furrows, whilst the harrows
on each side extend over the lands to an optional breadth, and the ground so
harrowed is effectually secured from prejudice. 3dly, it promotes, on a fair
computation, a saving of one horse in four, one man in two, and one bushel of
grain on every acre, independant of contributing in most instances to the
production of a more abundant crop, and it performs double the business in
the same given space of time that the common mode of harrowing will do.
One material circumstance which constitutes this superiority is, that by the
peculiar manner in which the fastenings between the harrows are contrived to
act, and by a proper and minute attention to exactness in adjusting the
apparatus (in which there is no difficulty), and on which its efficacy principally
depends, the tines will not follow one another, or describe the same given line,
but each will perform its separate and distinct duty, as traced and exemplified
in the plan, with little or no material deviation. 4thly, it is not liable to be
clogged or clodded in any species of soil, and will gather light rubbish as well
as a rake. In short, it has, in the course of actual experiment, most decidedly
and satisfactorily been proved, not only that land may be profitably sown and
harrowed by the use of this apparatus in seasons when it has been supposed
impossible so to do with effect, but also that the crops upon such ground have
been much greater than on other lands under similar adverse circumstances.
And it is asserted, with that confidence which is the result of repeated trials and
perserverance,-that-this-apparatus generally adopted will serve the community
more by the saving of seed and increasing the produce than any other
agricultural plan yet offered to the public.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Wilde, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Tenth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and one.
WN WILDE. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Tenth day of March,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid William Wilde came before
our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor
of the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the Thirteenth day of March, in the year above written.