The Cherry Stoner: A Hopper, a Basin and a Fork of Needles

Van Kannel's object is "to stone cherries by machinery adapted to this purpose, which is automatic in its operation, requiring no further manipulation than to put the cherries into a hopper and to keep the machine in motion". His earlier machine (patent of 14 October 1862) removed the cherries from the "barbed needles" with a spring finger-piece worked by the hand; now that piece, "which I now term a 'claw,' operates automatically". A box A with jaws and a clamping screw holds the machine upright on a table edge. A conical-mouthed hopper D feeds a sliding box F; a curved rocking feeder E with a ridge and tongue lets out "only one cherry to be discharged at a time." Box F has a basin G with a hole in its bottom. The fork H "is made of five (or more or less) needles", fixed above in line with the hole, so as the basin rises "the fork H will thrust the stone through the cherry and through the basin, leaving the stoned cherry above or on the basin". The fork is barbed to hold the cherry, and the spring-claw I "separates the stoned cherry from the barbed fork H, and thrusts this cherry out of the machine in the downward stroke".

Weigh out two 500 g lots of cherries. Stone one lot by hand with a paper-clip loop or the tip of a knife, timing it with the stopwatch; stone the other with a cherry pitter, timing it too. Weigh the stones and the stoned fruit from each lot to see how much flesh each method loses, and count any cherries where the stone was missed.

**Theophilus Van Kannel** of Chester, Illinois, received US 38,434, dated 5 May 1863. His claims cover the curved spring-rocker feeding cherries one at a time, the automatic claw that discharges the stoned cherries, and the claw's sliding and vibrating action. **Honest limits.** Cherry weight and stoning rates in the notebook are examples.