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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



indeed of liis wife. And this, be it remembered, is 

 triumphantly accomplished without the aid of such 

 men as Clayton and Shuttleworth, of Lincoln; Ran- 

 somes and Sims, of Ipswich ; J. and F. Howard, of 

 Bedford ; R. Hornsby and Sons, of Grantham ; Tuxford 

 and Sons, of Boston; Garrett and Sons, of Saxmnndham; 

 Barrett, Exall, and Andrewes, of Reading ; B. Samuel- 

 son, of Banbury; and E. Crosskill, of Beverley; H. 

 Clayton, of London; Whitehead, of Preston; Nicholson, 

 of Newark; and Smyth and Sons, of Peasenhall. 



Commencing at the first shed, we find on the stand of 

 S. and .E. Ransome and Co., Long's apparatus for 

 sheep -dressing ; and amid a variety of articles, the new 

 mouse-trap of Mr. Colin PuUinger, which deserves the 

 immediate attention of all anxious to rid their 

 premises of the inveterate little vermin. Lord 

 Leigh's prize field gate ; Warner and Sons' pumps for 

 all purposes and of all capacities. Thos. Bradford, of 

 Manchester, exhibits his novel and excellent combined 

 washing, wringing, and mangling machine, able to wash 

 twenty shirts at once with perfection of cleansing and 

 without injury. In the prize thrashing-machines 

 of Gibbons and Co., of Wantage, we have a high- 

 class workmanship and efficient straw-shaker, new 

 cross-grooved riddle, and cross blast, by which the chafi' 

 is blown out at the side instead of underneath the 

 machine, and the corn is elevated and put through a 

 barley-homer. Bigg, of Southwark, exhibits his sheep- 

 dipping apparatus. Lyon, of Finsbury, has a large as- 

 sortment of sausage and mincing machines. The 

 Trustees of W. Crosskill, of Beverley, have a very fine 

 stand, comprising their thrashing-machines, compound- 

 action mills, bone-mills, Lambert's new root-pulper, 

 clod-crusher, patent wheels and axles, harvest carts, and 

 market carts. Humphries, of Pershore, shows his 

 first-class thrashing-machines, noted for effective 

 work and portability. B. Fowler and Co., of 

 Whitefriars, have a great variety of pumps, 

 hose and pipes. Coleman and Sons, a collection 

 of their unsurpassed cultivators, and a new lever 

 hoe. Clay, of Wakefield, exhibits his clever cul- 

 tivator, with teeth which withdraw from the land 

 backwards, like those of a horse-rake. Ruston, 

 Proctor, and Co., of Lincoln, show their portable 

 and fixed engines, their combined and finishing 

 thrashing-machines, grinding mills, and saw-benches. 

 Coultas, of Grantham, has a show of his well-made drills. 

 Barnard, Bishop, and Barnard, of Norwich, bring root- 

 pulpers, troughs, garden tables, ornamental chairs, and 

 galvanized wire netting. On the extensive stand of 

 Richmond and Chandler, of Manchester, represented as 

 usual by Mr. Norton, we find bean and oat-mills, 

 linseed-crushers, and the celebrated chafi'-cutters, 

 with recent improvements and simplifications in the 

 manner of driving the feed-rollers at different speeds for 

 varying lengths of chaff. Boby, of Bury St. Edmunds, 

 exhibits his noted corn-screen, with its parallel wires 

 and ingenious cleaning action. Eaton, of Kettering, 

 has a new revolving turnip -thinner of considerable 

 merit, adapted to work on rows 18 to 30 inches apart, 

 and leaving bunches of plants 9 to 12 inches asunder. 

 The Agricultural Engineers' Company, of Swan-lane, 

 London, have a very large collection of machinery and 

 implements, the list of which fills 17 pages of the cata- 

 logue. Here we discover specimens from the works of 

 several of the nonconformist firms, such as the engines 

 and thrashing-machines of Barrett and Exall ; the 

 ploughs and corn-dressing machines of Hornsby, and 

 Garrett ; Howards' and Ransome and Sims' ploughs ; 

 the drills of Smyth, of Peasenhall ; the turnip-cutters of 

 Samuelson ; the liquid manure cart of Crosskill ; the 

 pipe and tile machine of Whitehead ; and so on. Of 

 course the makers themselves were present in the yard, 



and could be heard of at their friend so-and-so's stand ; 

 and while by a little importunity one of their business 

 catalogues might be forthcoming, you were by no means 

 obliged to tender an order furtively, or consider the 

 absentee manufacturer as not present for any purpose 

 beyond taking a gentleman's glance at the show. 

 Smith, of Kettering, exhibited his excellent and simply- 

 worked steerage horse-hoe, and his winnowing-mac'aine. 

 Bond and Robinson, of Hales worth, showed their 

 steam-engine, horse drag-rake, with jointed lever-rod, 

 allowing the teeth to fall into furrows, and their exceed- 

 ingly cheap and effective little horse-hoe, having its 

 knives all in one piece, and cutting up every weed with- 

 out chance of missing. Turner and Co., of Ipswich, 

 send their superior metallic mills, small portable 

 engines, and bean-cutters. Ashby and Co., of Stam- 

 ford, show their portable two-und-a-half-horse and four- 

 horse engines, their thrashing machine, and prize por- 

 table flour-mill, adapted to these engines ; their hay- 

 maker, horse-rake, chaff-cutter, and new rotating 

 harrows, which as they advance revolve from the greater 

 pressure upon the soil given to one side by means of a 

 weighted arrn. The action of these novel implements 

 is very complete, pulverizing the ground, and tearing 

 and shaking out weeds free from earth at a rapid 

 rate ; the price also is moderate. Mr. Aveling, of 

 Rochester, shows a portable engine, made locomotive 

 by a pitch-chain from an intermediate motion, geared 

 from the crank-shaft. This wheel can be shifted in a 

 quadrant for tightening the chain as it wears. The 

 s:eerage is well obtained without any horse, by fixing a 

 cutting disc-wheel to the fore end of the shafts, and 

 having a man to sit on the back of the shafts to steer by 

 a handle. 



On the stand of Maggs and Hindley, of Bourton, 

 Dorset, is a machine which ought to be brought more fully 

 into notice, and that might be practically improved in 

 detail, by some intelligent farmer taking and working it 

 with a view to testing and developing its merits. There 

 is no estimating how great a loss the farmer frequently 

 suffers in a wet harvest, from his inability to cover in 

 quickly the ricks which he builds with so much haste 

 and anxiety. Thatching is a slow operation, and hence 

 in many parts of the kingdom the bolting thrashing- 

 machine, which does not break the straw like the ordi- 

 nary drum, is employed to make a straight straw for 

 " boltings" or bunches tied up as the straw comes from 

 the machine. These being stored are readily and 

 quickly fixed as a rain-proof covering upon stacks 

 directly the roof is completed. In Devonshire they defy 

 showers by a stiil better system. On wet days labourers 

 are employed in the wheat barns to draw out corn from 

 the mow, the straw thus coming out straight. The ears 

 are cut off, the straw combed so as to remove the flaggy 

 portions which hold the wet, and under the name of " reed,' ' 

 is stored in readiness for covering-down ricks in harvest. 

 Now Maggs and Hindley's machine, invented by Mr. 

 Moody, is intended for weaving as it were a quantity of 

 portable thatch, so that with a roll of this straw matting 

 a large rick may be covered, and the thatch secured by 

 pegs, in an hour's time, or even less. The length of the 

 straw is the breadth of the fabric made ; the warp, 

 which may run to any length whatever, consists of gal- 

 vanized incorrosive iron wire. With the straw previ- 

 ously prepared, and the reels of wire already on the 

 machine, the work proceeds at the rate of 30 yards' 

 length per hour, with the labour of only one man and a 

 boy ; and the manufacturers reckon the cost for labour 

 and wire, and putting on the rick, at 7d. per " square," 

 or 100 square fe8t. It is usual to estimate common 

 wet-straw thatching at Id. per square yard, that is, lid. 

 per 100 square feet ; so that the machine, at any rate, 

 will be less expensive to work, and the cost price of the 



