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Buckminster's Corn & Seed Planter

From 1st Report of the Agriculture of Massachusetts, 1838

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS —The farming utensils in the county have nothing peculiar in their construction. Wm. Buckminster, of Framingham, has invented a corn-planter, which I have seen used with great advantage both for ruta-baga and Indian corn. I annex a cut of it with his own description.

"A beam four feet in length has four consecutive teeth, similar to those of a Cultivator, inserted into it. A wheel fourteen inches in diameter and four inches thick is attached to the hind end of the beam to regulate the whole, and to beat down the loam which is thrown upon the seed to bury it.

The hind tooth is hollow, and the hopper is placed above it containing the seed corn. Cogs on the wheel strike a rod which pumps the seed corn out of the bottom of the hopper and lets it fall through the hollow tooth into the channel which has been cut in the sod by the four consecutive teeth; the corn falling through the tooth to the bottom of it is buried sufficiently deep for vegetation.

Rows are made in one direction, and the hills are dropped at the distance of one, two, or four feet from each other, at the option of the planter. A thirty acre field may be planted by a double machine, with one man, one boy and one horse, laboring ten hours and travelling three miles per hour. Nothing but the finest loam of the field ever falls on the seed corn, and it is planted more exactly than is usually done by hand."

The same farmer has invented a machine for sowing grass seed, which is drawn by a horse and drops the seed with great uniformity. It seems to me well adapted for the purposes designed.

other 19th C. farm implement articles
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Contact: Richard Van Vleck