NEW AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XII, Issue 834, 26 June 1855, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

We visited Professor Mapes'g farm last week, to witness the trial of several new implements — one entirely so, and two or three others but little known. The first is called Gibb's Rotatory Spading Machine, tho same implement we described last summer in the Crystal Palace, and recommended highly to the attention of farmers, as we were convinced it was the germ of one of the most useful i inventions of the day for pulverising the earth without the aid of a previous ploughing. It has long been a desideratum among farmers to produce a machine which would perform the same kind of work as a spade, or fork in the ground, which could be operated by a team. 31r Mechi, of England, has been untiring in his efforts to obtain such a machine, and thinks he has succeeded. We think Mr. Gibbs has, or is now in a fair way to do so under the advice of Professor Mapes. His machine is composed of two cast iron plates, twenty eight inches across, and one inch thick. These are fastened upon a stout shaft, two inches apart, with eight strong wrought iron teeth between them, working on a hinge at the base, curved and projecting beyond the rim of j of the wheel, so as to strike as it rolls, ten or twelve inches into the earth, and just at that point, instead of prying the tooth out of the ground, it is pressed upon by a trigger in such a mauuer that the weight of the machine throws it out ; and so it rolls on, striking and tripping and pulverising the soil as perfectly as though it had been spaded or forked over in a careful manner. This machine has two sets of plates on one shaft, I affixed to a frame, and cut3 about two feet wide, as fast as a yoke of oxen could walk, in compact j claey soil, w.th more ea-e than they could move ' a plough. The earth was nicely mellowed as deep as the length of a common spade. The detects of the machine are these : In its present form it is hard to hold, and difficult to keep on a straight line. When made to straddle the farrow of a subsoil plough, its operation was far more satisfactory, leaving the earth in fine condition for any crop To remedy these defects, Professor Mapes suggests to the inventor to attach a small subsoil ploughshare to the forward part of the frame, so as to make a cut between the two sets of teeth, which -will servo to keep the machine in a straight line, and in the ground without so much weight, and not add anything to the draft. We believe it will also be found advisable to have a pair of guide wheels. Mr. Gibbs is now engaged in making a new machine, with these improvements, and then we think he will have one of the most simple, easy working spading machines yet invented. The was about a dozen intelligent gentlemen present, who all concurred in this opinion. No one was iutere:>t:d in the machine in any way, which gave the gentlemen an opportunity to express themselves more freely. We next witnessed the operation of Professor Mape's improved subsoil plough. The share is shaped like & quarter of lemon peel flattened. It is about four inches long and four or five wide, with a thin standard, some six inches broad and fifteen high, bolted to the beam. The share and standard are cast in one piece, the ends exactly alike, so that when the forward point gets dull it may be turned round. The bottom is slightly concave, and the whole lift only about an inch and a half, and the friction equally upward and onward, with no loss upon the land side, as in the old mode ; and it runs so easy that it wa^ drawn beam deep through unploughed ground, then in the bottom of the furrow, lifting the land side as well as the other, so the next furrow could be broken far easier and deeper. We then begged to have it put into a hard beaten road. The gentlemen said, "Oh, no; it will break it— the oxeu cannot pull it — it won't go in that hard pan." Professor Mapc;s said, " Try it." It went in about ten inches deep ; the oxen walked along qnite easy, and there was a ridge of broken lumps of that hard earth, four or five inches high, and a foot wide. This pattern is a great improvement on the old subsoil plough, and it runs with much less team, and does the work better. The next implement tried was the Michigan plough. This differs from any ordinary plough in this ; that attached to the beam is a share that cuts a furrow about four inches less in depth than the plain plough, turning the grass sod or top soil down into the bottom of the furrows, and covering it with the earth from below, It is a good improvement. Another new implement, called the horse hoe, was very much admired by the gentlemen who witnessed its operation. It is a triangular frame, with a knife tooth in front, and a little share at each wing, with a 'broad hoe in the centre, so made that it, divides the slice shaved up into particles, throwing the weeds to the surface. It cuts about two feet wide, and may be run within an inch of the row of plants. It is a good tool in almost every crop.' This fe«u is not an ornamental one, or as many 'have supposed, a* fancy farm of a city bred farmer but one upon which the system of under draining, deep ploughing, and subsoiling, and special manuring has been fully tested, and such crops as the , land, as wall as the locality, will make profitable,

are alone cultivated, and we venture to say the clear profits are greater than any other farm of equal number of acres in the State, unless it is some place wholly devoted to market gardening. The crops, here are plants, seeds, fruits, roots — no grain, no grass, no idle acres. There is no waste of manure j everything, even to smell, is carefully saved, and judiciously applied, but that is not a tythe of what is needed. The principal fertiliser is the improved super-phosphate of lime, of the manufacture of which we will give some account hereafter.— New York Tribune.