of the carriage, in which spaces are formed to receive the wheels, and for them to revolve in the side rails, being the bearings of the pivots. The wheels have short axles, the pivots of which are held in boxes attached to the under side of the rails; and the boxes are fixed to the frame-work by bolts, screws, and nuts, or by any other convenient mode of attachment. This construction of carriages has been commonly used in the East Indies for ages; and, if we mistake not, has been within the last three years employed in carrying a tank for watering the roads near Vauxhall; yet the patentee claims as his invention, this mode of "fixing each of the wheels upon separate axles, to be supported between bearers, and thereby leaving the wheels independent of each other, so as to allow of the load being suspended near the ground between the wheels, below the level of the axles." The advantages proposed by this contrivance are, that it furnishes the means of placing the axles of the wheels horizontally or parallel to the ground, and thereby obviates the necessity of dishing the wheels; and also renders their action upon the road less injurious by rolling over the ground instead of grinding. The rail, which extends on the outside of the wheel, protects it from blows or shocks, which might be caused by other carriages running against it; and also prevents the possibility of carriages becoming locked by the wheel of any other carriage in passing, obtruding itself between the wheel and body of the improved carriage. By this contrivance, as the axle does not extend across the frame, a large space is obtained, in which heavy merchandise may be suspended near the ground, thereby preventing the risk of overturning, and from which contrivance, wheels of larger diameter may be attached to this carriage, than are or can be usually employed upon the ordinary construction, which will enable the improved carriage to travel with greater facility over rough roads. It is farther considered, that the proposed mode of mounting the wheels, will be found of great advantage in carriages intended to be propelled by the power of steam, or any other first mover. A second improvement is claimed in this patent, which "consists in the application of an additional wheel (to a two, three or four wheeled carriage), formed like a hollow roller or drum, which may be made to roll along the road, in order to advance the carriage forward, by having a steam-engine placed within it in such manner, that the engine would tend to advance or climb up the inside of the drum, and so, by its gravity, to turn the drum round in the manner of those wheels, called walking wheels, used on tram roads." A cogged wheel is proposed to be fixed to the axle of this hollow roller, which is intended to take into the teeth of a rack fixed to the ground, and the carriage to be advanced by those means. In order to enable the carriage to turn angles or perform curves, it is intended that the hollow roller, or drum, should be formed like a barrel bulging in the middle, by which a dimunition of friction will be effected. Inrolled, February, 1822. Original Communications. On Spade Husbandry. To the Editor of the Journal of Arts, &c. SIR, As the subject of agriculture is one on which the Journal of Arts professedly treats, I request insertion for this letter. Whatever may be the speculative opinion of Mr. Owen of New Lanark, no one having attended the detail can doubt the utility, and practicability of many parts of his plans which have been laid before the public, and which have been indeed in considerable practical operation, under the immediate direction of this gentleman himself at Lanark. There is, I believe, very little doubt that they will now be adopted, in part at least, in order to avert the calamities, under which the poor are labouring,, both in this, as well as our sister island, and that such adoption will reduce, if not ultimately annihilate, that bane of our country, the poor-rate. The recent establishment too, of the British and Foreign Philanthropic Society, supported by the Earls of Blessington, and Lonsdale, Viscount Torrington, Viscount Exmouth, Lords Nugent, and Archibald Hamilton, and a host of M. P.'s, and other gentlemen, of all parties, promise much in furtherance of those plans for promoting the well-being, order, and comforts of the poor. To what, however, I desire more immediately to call your readers' attention, is the essential superiority of the spade over the plough husbandry. It appears by a letter of Mr. FALLA, dated Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nov. 13th, 1820, and published by Mr. Owen in his "Report to the County of Lanark, of a Plan for relieving Public Distress and removing Discontent, by giving permanent productive Employment to the Poor and Working Classes," that he has been, for between thirty and forty years past, occupied in the cultivation of land chiefly for the raising of trees, and seeds for sale; that, finding a difficulty some years since, of procuring a sufficient number of men to work the land with the spade, he substituted the plough in working those parts, where a considerable quantity of vacant ground happened to lie together; and he fancied that, besides getting through the work with more facility and convenience, the work was done in a manner equal to that done with the spade. The effect of the first use of the plough, was not of so much bad consequences as when repeated: the treading of the sub-soil by the horses' feet, together with the action of the iron bottom of the plough, not having, at first, the miserable effect of making the bottom of the worked ground hard and firm like a turnpike road. The continued successive use of the plough, however, soon shewed the bad effect, in the diminished health and vigour of the trees. Fortunately this effect was discovered by Mr. Falla, when men for spade work were more easily to be obtained than at the period when the use of the plough was adopted; this last practice has, in consequence, been by him entirely laid aside. In the use of the spade, Mr. Falla produces a depth of well-worked earth of nine or ten inches, which is more than twice that of the plough, as used in the counties of Durham and Northumberland; and, instead of the hardened level bottom not easily if at all penetrable in strong clayey sub-soils, by either superfluous moisture, or the roots of plants, he obtains a loose broken bottom, which is esteemed a particularly favourable circumstance in such soils. Mr. Falla was still further stimulated to make experiments in the spade culture, in consequence of an experiment in wheat, with this method, which had been made at Nottingham many years ago, having been mentioned to him as productive beyond example. The Nottingham experiment having been made with plants of wheat raised upon garden beds, and thence transplanted into lines, Mr. F. began with the same method. He sowed the wheat beds in the month of August, and transplanted the same in September and October; the distance of the lines from each other was, in one experiment, nine, and in another twelve inches, the plants in both cases being twelve in each yard. These experiments were made two years successively; the least produce was fifty-two, and the greatest sixty-two bushels, Winchester measure, per acre. The quantity of land under these experiments was one half an acre each year; a quantity sufficiently large for experiment. The digging, at Mr. Falla's common nursery price, cost fourpence per rood, of fortynine square yards; or thirty-three shillings per acre; the transplanting fourpence halfpenny per thousand. There is, by this method, a great saving of seed; from one to two pecks of wheat producing as many plants as are sufficient to plant an acre; whereas, the usual quantity for plough cultivation, sown broadcast, is two bushels. The following, on these data, is the expense of cultivating one acre, the lines being nine inches apart. Digging Transplanting 232,323 plants at 4 per 1000 4 7 1 4 6 £6 4 7 During the time of making these experiments, it occured to Mr. Falla, that the increase in the produce of wheat arose more from the deep working of the land by the spade, than from transplantation. He, therefore, made other experiments with wheat, sown both in drills and broad cast, the land being, in all cases, worked in the same manner by the spade. The following are the results. |