IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURAL DRILLS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Osborne Reynolds at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th April 1879.
OSBORNE REYNOLDS, of Debach, in the County of Suffolk, a Clerk in Holy Orders.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURAL DRILLS."
The object of this Invention is to simplify and cheapen as well as improve the
drills used for sowing corn, seed, and manure.
The said improvements consist,―
1. In the frame, of which the foundation is the hopper, containing the seed,
through which the carrying or operating shaft passes from wheel to wheel.
2. In the substitution of brushes or other propellers of corresponding action
either flexible or rigid, attached to the working shaft, in lieu of revolving cups, by
which propellers the seed is forced to pass over the discharging apertures, but
without the necessity of the brushes coming in contact with the bottom of the
hopper. In some cases I simply cover the working shaft with a coating of cloth or
wire-web sufficiently rough to propel the seed. By either of these arrangements
the passing of the seed is regular and unaffected by the condition of the land, while
the brushes or propellers, not being in contact with the bottom of the box, are
preserved from the effects of friction.
3. In dispensing with cog-wheels for regulating the feed, and simply causing a
bar with definite-sized holes to slide over a second bar with corresponding holes,
and capable of adjustment from the outside of the hopper, by which means all the
feed-openings are regulated by the same movement of the bar.
4. In arranging simple slips at the bottom of the hopper, by which the seed-
openings not in use are closed against the escape of seed.
5. In conveying the seed by flexible spring conductors to the coulters, which
conductors are held in place by simply compressing the upper rings of their frames
into a slide beneath the discharge-holes.
6. In continuing the conductor into the coulter itself, which is made tubular for
that purpose through half its depth.
7. In forming the coulter-levers of spring steel, and attaching each of them to a
rocking bar by a single bolt, so contrived as to give the opportunity of instant
adjustment or removal, while no horizontal deviation of the coulter from its path is
possible while its fastening screw is tight.

page_text: 8. In operating the rocking-bar by a crank convenient to the drill-man, and
working a shaft which passes under, over, or through the seed-hopper. A chain,
wrapping and unwrapping on this shaft, works a lever which rotates the rocking
bar through an angle sufficient for the elevation and depression of the coulters.
This arrangement supersedes the necessity for the weights, by which the coulters
are now usually forced into the soil.
9. In connecting the rocking lever-bar by an elastic arm with a clutch on the
main axle, by which the working shaft in the seed-box is put into or out of gear
at the same moment that the levers and coulters are depressed or raised.
10. In dividing the seed-hopper longitudinally at the level of the main shaft, so
that the lower portion falls on hinges, and is closed by screws or other fastenings
behind. By this arrangement the seed-box is emptied or the main shaft removed
with ease.
11. In attaching light wooden felloes on each side of the rims of the iron wheels,
and filling the space between them with a compound of resin and sawdust or other
equivalent materials. This arrangement gives to the thin-rimmed iron wheels the
appearance and advantage of ordinary wood wheels.
12. In attaching to each end of the fore carriage an adjustment terminating either
in a wheel or chain or their equivalents, the motion of which guides the driver on
his seat in steering the vehicle, so as to maintain the parallelism of the successive
courses of the drill.
13. In attaching to the driver's seat a prop or holder for his head, and to the
frame in front of him a sight-rod, by the aid of which he can on commencing work
drive the horses with accuracy across the field.
14. The details of this Invention may be adapted to horse-hoes and other tillage
implements.