Roller (agricultural tool)

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.

Flatter land makes subsequent weed control and harvesting easier, and rolling can help to reduce moisture loss from cultivated soil.

Rollers are a secondary tillage tool used for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil, especially after ploughing or disc harrowing.

Animal power is still used today in some contexts, such as on Amish farms in the United States and in regions of Asia where draft oxen are still widely used.

Regulations permit a pitch only to be rolled at the commencement of each innings or day’s play, but this has still had a massive influence on the game by eliminating the shooters that were ubiquitous on all but light soils before heavy rollers were used.

[1] Heavy rollers have sometimes been criticised for making batting too easy and for reducing the rate at which pitches dry out after rain in the cool English climate.

A roller in a typical power farming application
A 12-foot smooth roller comprising eight 1.5-foot segments
A ridged roller comprising many segments is usually called a Cambridge roller in the United Kingdom and a cultipacker in the United States; each name originated with a manufacturer in the respective country and evolved into the regionally prevalent name for the type.
A field after rolling with a Cambridge (or similar) roller
Two "garden rollers" in Hill Close Gardens, Warwick