142 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Amongst the accom|>cinying' proceediugs were the 

 Dinner and the General Meeting, reports of which are 

 given. Although the Music Hall was well filled, the 

 entertainment scarcely conveyed the idea of being the 

 great dinner of the national Society. Such, in fact, it 

 was not, although many of the more notable members 

 supported it with their presence. The speech-making 

 was altogether rather heavy ; by far the best 

 address being that of the Dean of Canterbury, 

 wlio dwelt very happily and effectively on the im- 

 proved condition of the wdrkir.g-man, and the inevi- 

 table rise in the social scale of the agricultural labourer. 

 The President's point was the steam plough, and a 

 series of calculations for which, however, his Lordship 

 declined to stand answerable. We must ask the like 

 immunity, as the Hall was not the best to hear in, 

 and the diiferent items uot over clearly put. 

 But figures in after-dinner speeches rarely tell, and 

 they certainly did not at Canterbury. Lord Winchilsea, 

 who was by no means so good as we have heard him, 

 very naturally took the horse as his text-word ; while the 

 display of these animals at the meeting must have had 

 immense weight with his lordship. Few of those who 

 have read what he has said so recently in the House, 

 or written in Bell's Life, would suppose that this was 

 the same Earl of Winchilsea we found addressing the 

 yeomen of Kent on the terribledeterioration in our breed 

 of horses ! The General Meeting went off rather tamely, 

 although Major Munn protested, in the name of the agri- 

 culturists of the county, against the extraordinary deter- 

 mination of certain implement-makers. It appears that 

 a counter-resolve has already been adopted, and that 

 farmers have agreed to deal with no firms which 

 do not come under the countenance of the Society. 

 Whatever may have been the inducement, there is no 

 doubt but the adoption of this step was a grievous 

 error. It was generally so regarded at Canterbury, 

 although few cared to speak out in that vigorous 

 language adopted by Major Munn, Still, the great 

 Houses did not altogether ignore the Meeting, despite 

 their announcement not to exhibit. Many of them 

 stood by implements of their own manufacture, 

 while their catalogues were in circulation, and orders 

 taken as usual. Surely this is scarcely consistent 

 with the avowal, more or less direct, that they wished 

 to have nothing to do with the Meeting. 



THE IMPLEMENTS. 



The site of the Show-yard was north of the city, in 

 front and in the grounds of a pleasing mansion called 

 " Hale's Place," at a somewhat inconvenient distance 

 from the most populated part of the town ; but it had 

 a decided advantage in the proximity of the trial- 

 grounds for the mowers, reapers, and steam cultivators. 

 Its contiguity to the railway, also, was another great coun- 

 terbalance against a prolonged walk; so that, upon the 

 whole, it was well-chosen. The implement- stands 

 and trial-yards were, as usual, in one division of the field, 

 with the cattle-sheds on the opposite side. The trial- 

 grounds were on Folly Farm, adjoining the yard ; and 

 those for Kentish ploughs and heavy steam cultivation 

 on the higher ground above. 



The trial of implements and machinery which com- 

 menced on the Wednesday morning previous to the 

 opening, was confined to the following departments : — 

 "The application of steam-power to the cultivation of 

 the soil," thrashing machines, chaff-cutters, mills, 

 crushers, oilcake-breakers, bone-mills, turnip-cutters, 

 hand-tools, field-gates, and miscellaneous awards. 

 There were also many local prizes, consisting of prizes 

 or ploughs, ploughmen, hop cultivators, grass-mowers, 



reaping machines, hop-pressers, building designs, aud 

 apparatus for drying hops : samples of hops of various 

 kinds, and of wool of various kinds; altogether forming 

 a long list of prizes. 



The annexed table will give some approximate view of 

 the implements shown ; for, notwithstanding the ab- 

 sence of some of the leading firms, the exhibition was 

 altogether a good one. Still, from the subjoined table 

 of implements and machinery exhibited, it will be seen 

 that the falling-off since last year is very considerable :— 



AETICI.E3 ExniBITEB. 



coo 



No. of Exhibiters, and in 

 Articles as below 



Steam-ploughs or cultivators 

 (j c, drainiug-jjloughs) .. 



Steam-engines ............ 



Steam traction engines.. .. 



Drills 



Manure distributors 



Horse-hoes 



Hay machines 



Horse-rakes 



Heaping and mowing ma- 

 chines 



Carts (.•)4) and waggons (13) 



I'iouglis 



S ubsoilers 



Cultivators, &n 



Ciodcrushtrs and rollers ... 



Harrows 



Draining tools, and in sets . 



Thrasliiug machines 



Corn-dressing machines .... 



Chaflf-cutters 



Linseed-crushers, or mills .. 



Turnip-cutters, 6cc 



Oilcake-breakers. . ..,> 



Churns 



Brick and tile machines .... 



Mills 



Bone-mills 



Cheese-making apparatus. 



Cheese-presses 



Root-pulpers ........... 



Screening machinrs 



Gates (4S) and field-gates (56) 



Horse-powers 



Washing machines 



Water-casks, tanks, &c 





147 154 



U 

 83 



58 

 4 

 40 

 14 

 36 



66 

 47 

 127 

 7 

 37 

 38 

 72 

 19 

 C3 

 {3 

 48 

 62 

 35 

 34 

 67 



56 

 10 



43 



22 



102 



20 



85 

 18 



On Wednesday and Thursday, when the business com- 

 menced, the machines for hand-power were worked 

 through Mr. Amos's dynamometer, and those for steam- 

 power were driven through a revolving dynamometer ; 

 thus the amount of force consumed by each machine was 

 accurately measured and registered. The hand oilcake- 

 breakers were tried five minutes each, the quality of 

 the product being examined and weighed by the judges. 

 In this test some most remarkable results were elicited, 

 well showing the importance and value of the Society's 

 annual engineering proof of the capabilities of agricul- 

 tural machinery. One breaker of precisely similar con- 

 struction to another took twelve times more power to 

 do the same work, the difterence arising from the per- 

 fection of workmanship in the one case, and the imper- 

 fect finish and setting of the other. In another instance, 

 one machine took twenty times as much power as 

 another to do the same work, the difference being in the 

 number of working parts and the principle of action. 

 The hand oilcake-breakers tested were — One of 

 Dray, Taylor, and Co., invented and manufactured 

 by Nicholson, of Newark, in which the moveable roller 

 is driven by an internal cog-wheel, thus simply obtain- 

 ing an unusually great variation in the sizes broken, 

 and avoiding much friction — one of E. R. and F. 



