The greater the diameter of the wheel of a barrow, and the smaller the axis or spindle on which it turns, the less power will be required to drive it forward; for the friction is proportionately reduced.

The diameter of the wheel might be increased with manifest advantage to double that now employed, for even then it would be below the point of draught or impulsion (the hand of the labourer); and the nearer it. can be brought to a level with this, the more efficiently he exerts his power.

The breadth of the wheel's periphery, or felloes, might be also increased two inches advantageously; for, as it is always employed upon a surface in some degrees soft, such an increased breadth would decrease the depth to which the wheel of a loaded barrow usually sinks into the soil, and would proportionately decrease the power required to overcome the augmented opposition. In a wheelbarrow so constructed, a man might move with more ease eight hundred weight, than he now impels five hundred weight, which is a full barrow load.

If a wheelbarrow be made of wood, the feet and handles should be capped with iron, and its joints strengthened with bands of the same metal. Iron barrows are now made weighing no more than ninety-two pounds, and they run very light.

The longer the handles of a wheelbarrow are, and the nearer the load to the wheel, the easier is that load lifted, and the easier is the barrow turned over to discharge the load.