USEFUL INVENTION.

Patea Mail, Volume XI, Issue 133, 26 February 1886, Page 4

USEFUL INVENTION.

The invention of a potato sorter is reported. It separates potatoes into three sizes at one operation, and affords facilities for bad ones to be picked out at the same time. The potatoes are shovelled or otheiwise put into a hopper, which passes them on to a riddle, kep iu a joggng motion by turning a handle. The smaller ones drop through on to another riddle, also in motion, whilst the smallest ones, passing through, are deposited on either side of the machine by a screen. The second size in like manner are put out, and the full size market potatoes are collected at the end of the machine. The potatoes, in passing through the machine, are presented to the operator in a single layer, so that the bad ones can easily be detected. With the help of this machine three men are found to do the work of thirty pickers. Further advantages claimed are the rapidity and cleanliness with which tho work is done. If required, it can be used simply as a cleaning machine. In practice it is found capable of cleaning and sorting the potatoes as fast as a man can shovel them into a hopper. It works so easily that a boy is sufficient to turn the handle, and one other man can attend to all the picking out and delivery. This excellens appliance is eminently labor saving, at it has been found that the tabor bill of a farmer for potato-digging has been reduced twenty-five per cent, by its means