144 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



portable way is a travelling carriage, to which is 

 attached the cultivating mac bine. This carriage is 

 hauled backwards over the land by stoam power, and 

 hauling tackle fixed at each end of the portable rail- 

 way. The wheels of the portable way travel on strips 

 of land." On these wheels also rest two engine- 

 houses and engines, besides the curious balance power 

 to keep the suspension chains extended. The whole is 

 designed to plough the land into fifty-yard stetches, 

 passing the weighty apparatus along grooves made 

 in the soil, and ploughing transversely as the 

 machine progresses. The strips of land are intended 

 to be converted into grass, and depastured or mown, 

 as the inventor suggests. Price £"650. Another in- 

 vention, not quite so ridiculous, is the weed-extermi- 

 nator of Mr. Evens, an implement really manufactured, 

 and to be purchased at the low sum of thirty-five 

 pounds. It begins its work with an array of cultivating 

 tines, closely arranged, passing about two inches into 

 the soil, and collecting the weeds, which it professes to 

 pass up to a set of revolving teeth, which take them up 

 to an endless web, by which they are conducted into 

 a furnace, there to be burnt or charred, and at length 

 deposited upon the ground as a most useful manure. 

 We regret to say these absurdities are not all ; and we 

 merely name them as rare specimens of unprofitable 

 elaboration. 



Powis, James, and Co.'s tenoning and mortising ma- 

 chines ; Robey and Co.'s portable engines ; Haywood's 

 portable engines; Wilkinson, Wright, and Co.'s engines; 

 Ashby 's 4-horse power portable engine, with im provements 

 simplifying and strengthening the parts, and a flour-mill 

 adapted to it ; also a small thrashing-machine, by the 

 same maker, driven by a2i-horse power engine, capable 

 of thrashing out twenty quarters per day. In this 

 machine springs are employed in place of slings, and 

 many bearings are thus dispensed with. Morton and 

 Co.'s strained hoop-iron and wire fencing ; Child's 

 suction dressing-machine, and many other articles and 

 machines were also shown in the trial-yard. Some in- 

 terest was created on Friday afternoon by the testing of 

 Ericsson's caloric engine, a new motive-power, claiming 

 to save two-thirds in fuel, besides possessing many 

 great advantages over the steam-engine, as doing without 

 water, being safe from explosion, being so light and 

 and simple, &c. The ]tricc of this single-action engine 

 is ;£'130, the power professedly about 2-horse ; bowovcr, 

 a leading implemont-firm have worked some for ten 

 months, with the alleged result of 4-horse fuel being 

 consumed for effecting only ^j a horse work. The 

 friction-break, in the present trial, showed the power to 

 be no more than } of a horse power. The engine ex- 

 , hibits remarkable ingenuity in the simple manner by 

 which intricate differential motions are obtained. 



The reaping-machines were been tried upon a piece 

 of exceedingly light unripe rye, which presented no ob- 

 stacle to easy delivery, though the profusion of wild ca- 

 momile and other weeds on hard rough ground proved 

 the capability of the cutter. The following were worked 

 with results more or less satisfactory : Burgess and 

 Key's reaper, with its self-delivering screw platform, but 

 without the conical dividing roller, which is so effective 

 in a heavy and tangled crop ; Prentice's combined reaper 

 and grass-mower, with peculiar and excellent contriv- 

 ances for self-adjustments to all irregularities of sur- 

 face, and endless belt delivery ; Dray's champion 

 reaper, with tipping platform for back delivery ; also 

 his improved machine, with curved platform for side 

 delivery ; Woods' American machine, which has proved 

 itself also valuable as a grass-mower ; Woods' worked 

 also a new reaper with automaton raker-ofF. This 

 clever contrivance consists of a rake made to sweep 

 across the platform horizontally, by the fore end 



being attached to an endless pitch chain travel- 

 ling in a groove round the entire platform ; 

 the action is that the rake is projected forward 

 along one side of the platform, then passes sideways, 

 gathering the cut corn into a bunch at the other side of 

 the platform, and then drawing back with its load, and 

 depositing it in a neat square heap ready for binding. 

 Nothing can exceed the neatness and regularity of the 

 delivery ; but some further alterations of this new piece 

 of mechanism, the whole weight of which is very trifling, 

 are required before it can cope successfully with the 

 weight of a bulky crop. There is a freedom from in- 

 termittent and rattling movements, which promises for 

 its principle a complete success after it has been ade- 

 quately developed in the harvest field. Hellard's reaper, 

 which is also a grass-mower, is distinguished by its 

 creeper finger-guards over and in advance of the cutter, 

 for lifting up laid corn ; the process being assisted also 

 by a revolving swing roller immediately behind the cutter- 

 bar, an endless web delivering either in swathe or sheaf. 

 This machine is interesting to those farmers whose heavy 

 and lodged crops defy the clean cutting of many other 

 reapers. Cuthbert's improved Hussey, with the con- 

 necting-rod end of the cutter- bar hung on a pendulum 

 sling (thus reducing friction), is worked by one horse, 

 a man raking off. The opinion of farmers present ap- 

 peared to be, that the self-delivery machines have not 

 altogether supplanted the simple and cheaper ones, re- 

 quiring a man to rake off ; but we believe there are crops 

 and circumstances adapted for both classes of machine. 



The trial of grass-mowers was very satisfactory, the 

 crop being sufficiently heavy, and the ground presenting 

 every variety of impediment likely to be found in ordi- 

 nary meadows. Prentice's machine did its work well. 

 Dray's did far better on the clover which was after- 

 wards cut. Hellard's attempted to tedd as well as cut, 

 by means of a revolving apparatus behind the cutters ; 

 but trying to do too much, fell short of performing either 

 process perfectly. Cranston's new Woods' mower, 

 which won the great medal at the Paris show, cut beau- 

 tifully, close and regularly ; this light, easy, and wonder- 

 fully simple piece of machinery being much admired. 

 The breadth cut is 4 feet 4 inches. The price for 

 the one-horse machine £"20 ; for the two-horse 

 mower, £22. The machine has two driving 

 or carriage wheels ; the flexible steel cutter-bar 

 clings closely to the surface of the field, and being 

 placed in advance of the workman, who holds the reins 

 like a coachman on his box, the cutting is always under 

 his eye, and the knives are instantly raised by a lever- 

 motion, in case of any obstacle. When his task is done, 

 the driver can take up his knife, and trot away to 

 another field. The Allen's grass-mower of Messrs. 

 Burgess and Key, price £30, is well known ; and as a 

 further testimony to its efficacy, we may add that the 

 Duke of Beaufort has this year cut 200 acres of hay 

 with two machines, with the most complete satisfaction, 

 the rate of work for each mower being about an acre 

 per hour. The peculiarities in the machine are as 

 follows — the height of the framing above the ground is 

 found indispensable in a very weighty crop of close 

 grass, the cutters are backward instead of in the front, 

 so that in case of an obstacle arresting the machine, the 

 cutter-bar is lifted by the very impediment itself, and 

 so passes safely over, instead of being forced into the 

 ground by downward pressure from behind, and so 

 causing accidents. The driver regulates the pres- 

 sure upon the cutter by shifting his seat to either 

 side of the box. The 3i feet driving-wheel is in 

 the middle of the frame, which is balanced as 

 it were upon it, while a travelling wheel 

 on a spring bracket at the near side preserves the equi- 

 librium of the whole machine, while it allowing to accom- 



