THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



195 



an arm of steel instead of wood, which gives it more 

 flexibility. Besides this, an automaton rake is fixed to an 

 endless chain, which turns round the irregular plat- 

 form on which fall the ears, receiving a go-and-come 

 movement, which enables it to throw the swath on one 

 side of the horses' path. But the gearing employed in 

 imparting the movements is far from being well ar- 

 ranged, so that the rake cannot well perform its work 

 when the wheat cut is rather thick. It then becomes 

 necessary to disconnect the rake, and have recourse to a 

 man to lay the swath. The improvement attempted by 

 the inventor is, therefore, not yet completely realized. 

 The jury awarded to Mr. Cranstoun the third prize for 

 foreign machines. 



7th. — Mr. Roberts exhibited a machine, which is 

 the 217th of those made by him in France. He has 

 not made any new improvements in the Manny fmachine 

 since the Inst meeting ; but the jury was desirous of 

 rewarding by an honourable mention the zeal that this 

 maker has displayed in disseminating the new machines. 

 M. Durand, the Mayor of Bornel (Oise), whom the 

 jury had already noticed last year, has again come to 

 make the trial of Robert's machine. Tiiis agriculturist 

 who has used the machine in three harvests, continues 

 to make improvements in it, upon which he reckons to 

 produce an implement quite perfect, and capable of 

 cutting even the laid wheat. Tliis will be an advantage 

 which the next meeting only will be able to prove. 



8th. — The celebrated machine by Bell certainly 

 deserves to be examined with attention, since it was 

 the first mechanical reaper that really succeeded. From 

 the year 1828 it has been employed in Scotland on many 

 farms. We know that the team is made to push the 

 machine before it, that the wheat falls upon a table 

 furnished with an endless web, and is afterwards thrown 

 laterally into swathes. These arrangements, although 

 very ingenious, involve many difficulties in the direction 

 of the machine, above all when it is attempted to change 

 its course. Also, the wheat was not properly cut at the 

 corners of the parcels on which the machine was tried, 

 and it was not possible for the jury to recommend to the 

 agriculturists by a reward a machine which nevertheless 

 reflected the greatest honour upon its inventor. 



9th. — Dr. Mazier stands at the head of the French 

 inventors, and has not ceased to perfect his machines, 

 which are more simple and less cumbrous than the 

 foreign machines, and on that account are better 

 adapted to the general conditions of French agriculture. 

 M. Mazier, since last season, has added to his machine 

 a moveable back-stay in a vertical position, intended to 

 support the saw and enable it to follow the undulations 

 of the ground. Besides this improvement, M. Mazier 

 has reduced the price of his machine from 1,030 francs 

 to 80O francs, and he has already delivered ninety of 

 them to French farmers. The jury awarded him the 

 first prize for French machines. 



M. Mazier declared to the jury, with great candour, 

 that he owed a part of his success to the persevering 

 assistance he had always received fromhis superintendent, 

 Emile Ruffrey. The agriculturists are fortunate in find- 

 ing occasion for encouraging the workmen employed on 

 their farms. They well know how much the master is 

 compelled to trust to his servant, and it is by kindness 

 on the part of the former that those long attachments, 

 so frequent still between the master and his rural agents, 

 are sustained. The jury has appreciated the sentiments 

 which dictated this declaration to M. Mazier, and has 

 requested the minister to assign a bronze medal and 

 200 francs to M. Emile Ruffrey; and he has felt plea- 

 sure in thus rewarding a co-operator in the invention of 

 French Reaping machines. 



10th.— The invention of reaping machines is perhaps 

 the most difiScult of all those required in agriculture. 



We have, in fact, only one solitary annual opportunity 

 of submitting to the test of experiment the combina- 

 tions which we have conceived in the silence of the study, 

 and to which we give a tangible form in the workshop. 

 We await with anxiety the maturity of the harvest ; and 

 if it happens, as this year, that the weather has been 

 for a long time cold and rainy, so that the wheat does 

 not ripen, the inventor is obliged to come before the 

 jury to encounter trials which perhaps will upset alibis 

 calculations. We must not, therefore, be surprised 

 that some of the French inventors have mis-carried in 

 the experiments of Fouilleuse. Without prejudging 

 anything, the jury hope that one of the exhibitors, M. 

 Lallier, will be able to overcome the difficulties under 

 which he has failed this year. But it is results which 

 it is necessary to reward, and not merely promises. The 

 jury has, therefore, not without regret, resolved not to 

 award the second prize for French machines. 



11th, — M. Legendre had exhibited the previous 

 year a machine remarkable for its price, and for the 

 small space it occupies. This ingenious and persevering 

 constructor has come again with a machine a little im- 

 proved, but which still does not solve the problem of 

 mechanical reaping, especially in respect to the sheafing. 

 However, such as it is at the present moment, in thin 

 wheat, and with two men, the machine of M. Legendre 

 does its work well. The jury awarded it the third prize 

 for French machines. 



12th. M. Cournier of Saint Romans (Isere) has in- 

 vented and constructed his machine for southern coun- 

 tries ; that is to say, for wheat with harsh, dry straw, 

 growing at harvest on lands hardened by the sun. The 

 conditions in which he found himself this year at Fouil- 

 leuse were too different from those of the South, for 

 M. Cournier to hope to overcome the obstacles which 

 hindered the working of his machine. In the mean 

 time the Jury has awarded him an honourable mention, 

 in order to encourage him to continue his efforts of 

 improvement. 



13th. The Jury has felt it its duty to reprove the French 

 exhibitors for the carelessness with which they attended 

 the meeting. They take no trouble to ascertain, 

 before the trials, whether anything is deficient in their 

 machines. There are thus bolts to replace, shafts bent 

 on the road or the railway to be set right, gearings that 

 require adjustment. The sheaf-binders, accustomed to 

 the work required of them, are absent in spite of the 

 orders that should have been given to them : we have 

 not all that is wanted for the teams, which have not been 

 tried, &c., &c. It is not thus that the English exhibi- 

 tors present themselves at the meetings ; nothing is 

 wanting with them ei«:her in tools, men, or horses, and 

 they have tested them beforehand. Their example de- 

 serves to be cited ; it is necessary that punctuality, pre- 

 cision, and studious care should be piactised with agri- 

 cultural affairs, which will then have the success that 

 industry knows how to secure. 



14th. The Jury has remarked in its experiments that 

 the horses drawing the machines were, for the most part, 

 very much fatigued, and that the sheaf-binders could also 

 with difficulty sustain for any length of time the work 

 required of them. Struck with the absence of all pre- 

 cise information respecting the exertion required by the 

 machines, and desirous of furnishing to the inventors 

 useful instructions, it has requested M. iTresca to test 

 the machines of Messrs. Burgess and Key and M. 

 Mazier with the dynamometer. These trials were exe- 

 cuted with the double-bladed dynamometer of General 

 Morin, and gave the following results : 



1. Messrs. Burgess and Key's machine, weighing 

 750 kilogrammes (15 cwt.), drawn by two horses, 

 walking without work at the rate of 1 m. 40 d. per second 

 (about 2i miles per hour), with driver, and all its ap- 



