The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side, Vol. 1 No. 08 (1820) — John Shaqi
The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side, Vol. 1 No. 08 (1820)Various
Science
The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side, Vol. 1 No. 08 (1820)
Various
Agriculture; Agriculture -- Periodicals
[7] A dibble is a simple tool, which may be of different sizes and
forms, according to the uses it is intended to serve. If for setting
(in transplanting) cabbages or other like plants, it may be a round
stick about an inch and a quarter in diameter, shaved down at one
end (in a slope of 8 or 10 inches long) to a blunt point. An old
spade or shovel handle is well adapted to the purpose. If much used,
the slope may be advantageously covered smoothly with iron. But for
putting in _seeds_, the dibble may be in the form of the letter T.
To make one, take a piece of wood about 3 feet 4 inches long, and
about an inch and a quarter square. In one of the sides bore holes
in a line, and insert teeth at the proposed distance of the plants
in the row: if for Mangel Wurtzel, at 10, 11 or 12 inches apart; and
let the teeth be as long (projecting from the head place) as the
proposed depth at which the seeds are to be sown. On the opposite
side of the head-piece, bore a hole in the middle, large enough to
receive a handle of convenient length. On the top of the handle fix
a cross-piece 5 or 6 inches long, to be grasped by the hand in using
the tool.--With it, as many holes for seeds will be made, at every
movement, as there are teeth in the head. The handle may require
bracing, in like manner as a rake handle and its head is braced by
means of bows.
It now occurs to me, that perhaps the light roller used in levelling
the tops of the ridges may be set with teeth, and thus perform the
additional office of making holes for the seed; and with vastly
greater expedition than by dibbling. A light roller, long enough to
flatten two ridges at once, of 13 inches in diameter, and furnished
with two sets of four teeth each to pass along the middle of two
adjoining ridges--and the four teeth of each set being inserted at
equal distances in a circle of the roller,--the holes for the seed
would be made at the desired distance of near one foot from each
other. The teeth should be so shaped as to leave the holes made by
them fairly open. For this purpose they may be an inch and a half
wide and three quarters of an inch thick, where their shoulders are
fayed to the roller, and taper thence to a rounded thick edge at
their extremities. The same teeth, if not too long, may serve to
regulate and expedite the sowing of the Ruta Baga seed.
"The seed is deposited about an inch deep, whilst the moisture
is fresh in the earth,[8] and covered by drawing a garden rake
along the rows. After this, the light roller is again passed along
the ridges, [to press the earth upon the seeds] and the work is
finished."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account