Year: 1876

From present appearances one would
say that the farmers will soon have ma.
chimes for doing every sort of agricul-
tural work. A corn-planter viii plant
ten or fifteen acres a day, dropping the
kernels in drills or in hills at any desired
distance apart, and adding, at the same
time, any kind of pulverized fertilizer,
Grass seed, too, is sown and fertilized by
"the most perfect seed-sower and most
uniform compost distributor in the
world" It has succession of tubes OF
tunnels which conduct the seed or grain
to the earth, and a tube-shifter," by
the aid of which the operator can avoid
Jumps, stubble, and loose stone without
stopping his horses.


A combination hoe is an implement to
whose single handle can be attached sue.
cessively small hoe, a shovel, large
hoe, a knife for shaving the sides of sweet
potato ridges, rake, a mold beard, and
knife for cutting strawberry runners.
A patent potato-digger will dig Irish OF
sweet potatoes cleaner than can be done
by hand, and will neither cut nor bruise
them. A stalk-cutter cuts stalks as one
would cut off q stick with knife.
Reapers are constructed SO as never to
choke or clog in the heaviest or wettest
grass, and easily to cut crops that are fat
on the ground. Fodder-cutters are made
with an upward CUT" the feed, which
usually has more or less dirt and gravel
in it, is thrown completely over the
cylinder, and separated from all extra
neous matters. An opening is left just
forward of the rollers, SO that if any hard
substance should get into the feeder il
win drap through before coming in con.
tact with them.


There is no longer any need of pairing,
coring, and slicing apples with knife.
A neat, cheap little machine now does
all that much more rapidly and dexter
ously than the most experienced farmers
daughter can. It slices an apple with
only two turns of the crank, and at the
same time breaks the slice into pieces Of
the desired size, and throws them off in
one direction, the pairing being cast in
an opposite one. By slight change in
the arrangement peach can be pared,
stoned and halved in one-half the time
required by hand.


Ice cream freezers, which make the
cream smooth, light and of equal con-
sistency from the top the bottom of the
can, and which save SO much ice during
single season that it is almost cheaper
to buy one of them than to go without
ice cream altogether, are pleasant things
to talk about on these hot days.


I see it stated in Agricultural Hall
that selfdumping rake has become as
much necessity and is as urgently de-
manded as selfraking reaper. 1t may
be SO. If it is SO, there is comfort in the
thought that such rake is in the market;
is SO easily operated that any boy who
can drive can manage it; is SO simply
constructed that it can not possibly get
out of order; and each of its teeth is
not only free and independent, but has
also spiral spring, which allows it to
raise or lower itself at pleasure, and with
the utmost facility to pass over roots and
stumps. aa.
An oval butter-tub, made of well
seasoned white cedar, and provided in
ternally with tin cooler, which has at
each end removable chamber for ice,
thus saving great deal of inconvenience
in filling the chamber and in drawing
off the accumulated water, is an object
of some attraction to dairymen and
housekeepers. So is new milk pan and
cooler, an invention intended to free the
milk from animal odor and to keep the
temperature even and moderate, in ordel
that the rising of the cream may not bs
retarded nor the yield of butter de
creased. Cool water is admitted at the
end and at central points of the bottom
of the cooler simultaneously; but il
must not be too cool, else all the cream
will not rise. A temperature of sixty
degrees has been found to be the mos
suitable; and with proper care one
pound of butter can be made from every
twenty-five pounds of milk.