Roller (agricultural tool)
agricultural tool used for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil
The roller is an agricultural tool used for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil, especially after ploughing or disc harrowing. Typically, rollers are pulled by tractors or, prior to mechanisation, a team of animals such as horses or oxen. As well as for agricultural purposes, rollers are used on cricket pitches and residential lawn areas.
Flatter land makes subsequent weed control and harvesting easier, and rolling can help to reduce moisture loss from cultivated soil. On lawns, rolling levels the land for mowing and compacts the soil surface.
Rollers may be weighted in different ways. For many uses a heavy roller is used. These may consist of one or more cylinders made of thick steel, a thinner steel cylinder filled with concrete, or a cylinder filled with water. A water-filled roller has the advantage that the water may be drained out for lighter use or for transport. In frost-prone areas a water filled roller must be drained for winter storage to avoid breakage due to the expansion for water as it turns to ice.
“Roller (agricultural tool)” enters the record as agricultural tool used for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Roller, agricultural and tool can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roller (agricultural tool)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.