Referring more particularly to the drawings, in
The hopper has an endless circular conveyor belt 24 mounted across the bottom of the hopper and a brush 25 has center shaft 25′ and the brush is fixed to the shaft 25′. The shaft 25′ is rotatably mounted to the bottom front 26 of the hopper in front of the conveyor belt. The conveyor belt is an endless belt with rollers 27 and 28 are fixed to shafts 27′ and 28′, respectively. The shafts 27′ and 28′ rotatably mounted to the bottom of the hopper, so that the belt may be rotated to feed peat moss on the inside of the hopper, and the like, toward the front bottom of the hopper. A shaft 29 is rotatably mounted to the bottom of the hopper and a pair of wheels 30 and 31 are fixed to the ends of the shaft on each side of the hopper. The wheels rotatably support the hopper on the ground as the hopper is rolled along the ground.
A gear drive 32 is mounted to the outside of the right side of the hopper in a housing 33. A large 34 and a small gear 35 are fixed to the shaft 29 so that rotation of the wheels on the ground by the operator pushing the hopper forward on the ground by the handle 22 will rotate the wheels which will rotate the shaft 29, which in turn will rotate the gears 34 and 35. Three gears 36, 37, and 38 are mounted to the front shaft 28′ of the belt. The gear 36 is fixed to the front shaft 28′ of the conveyor belt and a chain 39 connects the gear 35 to the gear 36 so that rotation of the gear 36 through the chain connection drives gear 36. Gear 35 is small in relation to gear 36 so as to provide a drive reduction to the speed of gear 36 so as to slow the speed of the conveyor belt.
The brush 25 has a small gear 40 fixed to its outer end in front of the gear 38 in driving engagement with gear 38. Gear 38 is fixed to gear 37 and both gears are free to rotate on the front shaft 28′ of the conveyor belt. A chain 41 connects gears 34 and 37 and drives 37. Gear 38 is large in relation to gear 34 and large in relation to gear 40. Consequently, the rotation of the shaft 29 of the wheels provides an increased axial speed to the brush shaft 40 in relation to the shaft 29.
The front wall of the hopper has a fixed portion 42 which is fixed to the other three wall portion. The fixed portion 42 extends down with its lower edge spaced above the belt and a narrow wall portion 43 extends downward further toward the belt with its upper edge overlapping the fixed portion of the wall forming an opening 44. The narrow wall portion serves as a brush and is adjustable downward toward the belt by means of three levers 45, 46, and 47 so as to enable the operator to vary the amount of peat moss traveling out the opening 44 at the front of the hopper on the belt. The three levers are pivotally mounted between the fixed front wall portion 42 of the hopper and the narrow wall portion at the bottom of the fixed portion of the wall. Each lever has a knob 45′, 46′ and 47′ and rotating the knobs in one direction will loosen the levers and allow the levers to be pivoted about their pivot to cause that portion of the adjustable wall to be either raised or lowered. The pivoting of the levers in a clockwise direction, when viewed from
In its operation, the hopper will be pushed along on a field, from left to right, as viewed from
Consequently, the clockwise rotation of the belt will feed the moss in the hopper left to right out the opening 44 in the hopper against the brush and the brush, in rotating counterclockwise, will feed the moss downward between the front end of the belt and the brush onto the ground to thereby spread the moss onto the ground as the hopper apparatus is moved along the ground.
At the rear of the apparatus is a drag brush 48 which is pivotally mounted to pivot down about its pivot 49 to its downwardly inclined operative position as shown in
The handle 22 has also a pivotally mounted trailer hitch 50. The trailer hitch is pivotally mounted to the handle at pivot mount 51 and can be swung from an inactive position as shown in
Also for towing, the drag brush 48 will be pivoted to its upward horizontal position about pivot 49 and locked in that horizontal position by a lever 53 so as to be away from the ground and not interfere with the towing of the apparatus in the opposite direction of its movement when being used.
It will be obvious that various changes and departures may be made to the invention without departing from the spirit and scope there of accordingly it is not intended that the invention be limited to the specifically described in the specification or as illustrated in the drawings but only as set forth in the appended claims wherein: