194 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Foreign Machines. 



Names 



of 



Inventors. 



Patrick BeU. . . 



M'Cormick . . . 



M'Cormick 

 perfected by 

 Burges8&Key . 

 M'Cormick . . . 



Wood ...... 



Cuthbert 

 Manny . . 



Names 



of 

 Makers. 



Watson 



Burgess & Key 



Laurent 



Burgess & Key 

 Craustoun 



Cuthbert . 

 Roberts . , 



Names 



of 



Exhibitors. 



George Bell. . . . 

 Burgess & Key . 



Laurent 



Clubb & Smith . 

 Cranstoun 



Cuthbert , 

 Roberts . , 



No. of 



horses 



attached. 



No. of men 



employed with 



the machine 



2 I 2 



2 I 2 



French Machines. 



Narses of luTentors, at the same time Makers 

 and Exhibitors. 



Cournier 



Mazier 



Legendre 



Remark. 8, 



The machine cut well, but 

 made a middling swath. 



The machine cut well, and 

 made a good swath. 



The machine cut well, and 



made a good swath. 

 The machine cut well, and 



made a good swath. 

 The machine cut well; the 



rake collected the sheaves 



unequally. 

 The machine cut perfectly; 



the sheaf laid well. 

 Good work. 



The machine cut well enough, 

 but laid the sheaf only mid- 

 dling. 



Worked very well. 



Work pretty good. 



In these experiments, the vfheat not being very thick, 

 the horses were not in general fatigued. However, the 

 jury is convinced that they could not long have continued 

 the work that was required of them ; and it was the 

 same with the sheaf binders. Alazier's machine re- 

 quired only one horse, but in regular and continuous 

 work it would be necessary to employ two. Direct 

 measurement of the power expended by the teams, which 

 we shall find farther on, will show the agriculturists 

 how much, according to circumstances, the quantity of 

 work must vary, that we ought to obtain from horses 

 yoked to reaping machines. 



In the second trials, the machines of Burgess and 

 Key, Mazier, Cuthbert, Cranstoun (Wood's system), 

 and Legendre, were alone able to terminate nearly their 

 work. The jury ought to point out that the wheat cut 

 still wanted twelve days of reaching its maturity ; that 

 it had rained heavily before the trials ; that the wheat 

 was wet, very full of herbage, and that the ground was 

 saturated, and yielding. The trials, therefore, were 

 made under exceptional circumstances unfavourable to 

 the machines, and on the other hand, not permitting to 

 judge sufficiently of the results that would have been 

 produced, if the grain had been ripe, and susceptible of 

 shelling itself readily. However this may be, the expe- 

 riments executed afi'ord sufficient indications to enable 

 the jury to effect the classification of the machines. 



4th. — In the first line were placed the machine 

 of Messrs. Burgesss and Key ; to whom the jury has 

 awarded the first prize for foreign machines, and 

 the honorary prize. We know that this is no other 

 than that invented by the American, McCormick, and 

 has been perfected by Burgess and Key, who have 

 added to it three screws, ingeniously disposed, for col- 

 lecting the corn cut, and throwing it upon the ground 

 in swathes parallel with the track passed over by the 

 horses. This operation is executed perfectly when the 

 machine is cutting wheat sufficiently ripe and dry. In 

 wet and unripe wheat full of weeds, as was this year that 

 of Fouilleuse, the swath is less well formed, because 

 the ears have not, in proportion to the stems, their regu- 

 lar excess of weight. The makers had, in other respects, 

 only very slightly modified this machine since the meet- 



ing of last year. They have delivered 605 out of 630 

 that have been ordered of them. They have sold only 

 a small number of these machines in France; but M. 

 Laurent, of Paris, who has purchased of Messrs. Bur- 

 gess and Key the right of making them, has delivered 

 to our agriculturists 150, of which three were for Alge- 

 ria. A machine constructed by Laurent performed 

 well before the jury. This maker has, besides, the merit 

 of having reduced the size of the machine, in order to 

 render it more applicable to the Habitual conditions of 

 our agriculture; and he has a claim for encouragements 

 for his perseverance and his excellent manufacture. The 

 jury has demanded for M. Laurent a gold medal, not 

 classed, as maker and distributor of the machine of Messrs. 

 Burgess and Key. It has not considered that it ought to 

 reward, at present, other importers of this machine, in spite 

 of the skill with which Messrs. Clubb and Smith made 

 it act on the piece of ground the lot had assigned to them, 



5th. — The machine exhibited by Cuthbert had not 

 before been shown at our meetings. It is a successful 

 improvement on Hussey's American system, which had 

 the inconvenience of depositing the swath behind the 

 machine, upon the route the horses would have to take 

 at the next bout. This made it necessary, as the jury 

 was again obliged to state, in working the Hussey's ma- 

 chine, exhibited by Ganneron, that six men should be 

 occupied in gathering the sheaves, in order to remove 

 them from the path of the horses. Thanks to a table 

 well-arranged, a man standing on the machine can at 

 once collect the sheaves, and throw them on one side. 

 But the labour this work involves is severe, and it is not 

 probable that it will ever be properly executed with 

 well-filled wheat. However this may be, the machine 

 exhibited by Cuthbert, although the price is relatively 

 rather high, is one of the best constructed that appeared 

 at the meeting of Fouilleuse. It claimed for the exhi- 

 bitor the second prize of the foreign machines. 



6th. — The machine invented and constructed by 

 Wood, of the United States, was imported into Europe 

 by Cranstoun, who was charged to present it at work 

 before the jury. This machine appeared last year at 

 the meeting at Fouilleuse, and has since then undergone 

 some modifications. The cutting-bar is supported by 



