A MACHINE FOR CLEANING BUSH LAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 463, 16 April 1890, Page 2

A MACHINE FOR CLEANING BUSH LAND.

A Santa Rosa (California) inventor has devised a machine for clearing land that is attracting attention. With its use stumps and trees, which it would take an experienced and stalwart wood chopper half a day to remove from the soil, are dragged out hy the roots, scarcely the smallest fibrous vestige being left in the ground, in two and three minutes, and apparently without the expenditure of great force, The ease with which these stubborn impediments to agricultural development are removed is due to the mechanical construction of the machine, which is in the form of a capstan. Around the drum of the capstan a heavy cable winds, the other end being attached hy means of a heavy cl :‘n to the stump or tree. The cable is 16ft in length, and, by means of a patent block, any part of it can be hitched to the tree. The shaft which turns the drum is Isft in length, and is drawn with ease by one horse. Dividing the length of the shaft by half the diameter of the drum, 6in„ it gives the multiplying power of the machine as 36. By means oF another block, the power of the machine is increased to 78 times that of the horse which turns the shaft. The machine works on a hill-side as well as on level ground, and two acres of land may be cleared without changing its position.