A NEW OR IMPROVED MACHINE FOR THINNING TURNIPS AND OTHER PLANTS
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Hugh Dickie and John Dickie
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition,
on the 20th April 1875.
We, HUGH DICKIE, Miller, and JOHN DICKIE, Implement Maker,
both of Girvan, in the County of Ayr, North Britain, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention of "A NEW OR IMPROVED MACHINE FOR
THINNING TURNIPS AND OTHER PLANTS," to be as follows, that is to say :-
"
This Invention relates to a new or improved arrangement or con-
struction of machinery or apparatus for thinning young turnips or other
similar plants in the drills, or ridges, or flats, wherein the seed of such
plants has previously been sown, and which thinning operation is for the
purpose of allowing the plants remaining in the drills or ridges or flats
sufficient space to grow to maturity.
The machine consists of a framing supported on a pair of wheels, and
provided at its forward end with shafts or a pole, to which a horse or
horses is or are harnessed to draw the machine. On the frame one or
more rotating spindles is or are supported so as to operate vertically
over the drills, or ridges, or flats containing the turnips or other plants,

page_text: and in a direction parallel to the length of the drills or ridges. A vertical
spindle is provided for each drill or ridge embraced by the breadth of
the machine, and the spindles are operated at the desired rate of speed
from the carrying wheels by spur or bevil gearing or equivalent means
attached to the spindles and to the wheels. On the lower ends of the
vertical spindles blocks or bosses are fixed, and to these the hoes or
thinning instruments are attached, two or more hoes being provided for
cach boss or block, according to the number of plants required to be
thinned out in a given space. The bosses or blocks are carried
sufficiently high above the ground to keep them from contact with the
plants, the arms of the hoes attached to the blocks being bent down-
wards so as to bring the hoes into position for raising the plants. Levers
for raising and lowering the thinning mechanism to suit inequalities in
the ground operated on are attached to the bearings of the vertical
revolving spindles. The hoes by reason of the rotatory motion com-
municated to them through the vertical spindles, and also on account
of the horizontal motion communicated by the movement of the machine
along the ground are caused to describe a cycloidal figure in passing
backwards and forwards through the ridge of plants, and the number of
plants uprooted is regulated by the shape of the hoe and the distance it
extends from the centre of the vertical spindle, whilst the distance
between the plants left growing in the ridge is regulated by the rate of
revolution in proportion to the ground passed over.
The machine herein-before described is steered over uneven ground by
rendering the axle on which the carrying wheels are fixed movable to
any angle relatively with the line of draught, whereby the machine is
caused to move to either side of that line.
The turning of the axle is effected by any suitable arrangement of
The turning of the axle is effected by any suitable arrangement of
mechanism.