THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



317 



for nearly twenty minutes. Things were so evenly 

 balanced, that " I can't read them!" burst from the 

 lips of the staunchest adherents of the roan and the red ; 

 but at last came the long-looked-for sign to the secre- 

 tary, and Emma was called up to receive the winning 

 card. It afterwards transpired that Mr. Unthank had 

 been in vain urging his colleagues to go for Duchess 

 77th, but that, as in the case of the twins, he had been 

 outvoted. Fidelity, who beat Emma at Warwick, won 

 this cup for Colonel Towneley last year. 



The horses seemed to be here, there, and everywhere, 

 when they were not in the show-ring ; and they got 

 quite mixed up with the crowd under the trees during 

 the continuance of the showers. Young Napoleon, the 

 Pontefract agricultural class hero, came from Man- 

 chester, and was the winner of the dray horse prize this 

 time — a line of business to which he seems more suited. 

 The agricultural class prize was awarded to Gilknockie, 

 from Cumberland, who beat a very creditable field of 

 horses ; but the thoroughbreds, of which St. Clair 

 was deemed the best, were not much. Young Con- 

 queror's owner must have been rather doubtful as 

 to his lineage, and, to make matters safe, entered 

 him both as a thorough-bred and half-bred, "price 

 j£'50O." Jessie, a seventeen-year-old mare belonging 

 to Mr. Jonathan Peel, who was first with her at 

 Blackburn last year, and, with two of her stock as 

 well, repeated the performance, as far as she was con- 

 cerned, in the Brood Mare class for road or field, 

 and got the 10-guinea cup — an honour which fell, 

 in the Agricultural Brood Mare class, on the Rev. 

 Thomas Cooper, of Stonyhurst College, who was highly 

 commended for his Aighton Hero, among the agricul- 

 tural stallions. General Scarlett, the president of the 

 society, also won a first prize with a three-year-old filly 

 for road or field. 



The sheep were very various m their kinds ; and Mr. 

 Charles Carr, of Harewell Hall, near Pateley, had it 

 quite to himself in Leicester rams, and the Duke of 

 Devonshire in Southdowns. A good three-shear 

 Shropshire Down of Mr. Archibald Stewart's kept up 

 the honour of its class ; and the ancient rivalry between 

 the breeders of the mountain rams resulted in the 

 triumph of a splendid pure-bred Lonk of Mr. Jonathan 

 Peel's, to the great discomfiture of the Herdwickes. 



At the meeting of the society at Ulverstone, the Herd- 

 wicke ewes did well ; but the apparently rough hair at 

 the back of the neck, and the rather coarse wool; came 

 out badly by the side of the patriarch Lonk, who won 

 seven first prizes last year, and is just off on his York- 

 shire circuit again. 



The well-known winning names of Mr. John Harri- 

 son, jun., Mr. Wainman, and Mr. Halton of Adding- 

 ham are a guarantee for the excellence of the prize 

 pigs ; and the Lancashire people hung with no little 

 fondness over the poultry, which was generally good, 

 with the exception perhaps of the silver-pencilled 

 Hamburghs. We saw very little of the roots and seeds, 

 beyond a long board on the ground, on which mangels, 

 potatoes, onions, and other esculent roots were arrayed 

 in order, at the imminent peril of being squashed by 

 the horses, to say nothing of the appetites of three 

 donkeys, one of which was solemnly conducted about 

 in sheets, waiting to be judged for the one-guinea and 

 ten-shilling prizes. 



The trial of implements took place on the Wednesday ; 

 but, with the exception of Smith and Ashby's rotating 

 harrow and Major Munn's patent horse-hoe turnip 

 thinner and "nigger killer" (which seems a most deadly 

 foe with its brushes to the caterpillars), there was 

 nothing very new. The ploughing trials were not re- 

 markably good, but the reaping and mowing machines 

 gave very great satisfaction. Twenty-six churns were 

 entered, but only five were tested. Sixteen quarts of 

 cream were put in each, and the winner made 12' lbs. 

 of butter in fourteen minutes. Of the minor imple- 

 ments exhibited, none created more general interest than 

 Summerscales' (of Keighley) washing, wringing, and 

 mangling machine, which quite astonished "the gude 

 wives" by its rapidity and cheapness, and well deserved 

 its prize. The dinner in the evening was presided over 

 by Sir James K. Shuttleworth. Mr. Unthank, in re- 

 turning thanks for the judges, spoke upon the great 

 error committed by the farmers generally in not keeping 

 beasts better their first year ; and the success of those 

 two spirited Lancashire tenant-farmers, Messrs. Ather- 

 ton and Dickenson, who each won a head prize in the 

 Shorthorn classes against all England, was also alluded 

 to more than once, in the courBe of the evening, with 

 no small pride and pleasure. 



ARTIFICIAL DRYING OF CORN FOR STACKING OR THRASHING. 



In some parts of Sweden, Norway, and Eussia, com is 

 dried in the sheaf, so as to render it fit for stacking and 

 thrashing ; and from time immemorial similar propositions 

 have, every now and then, been enunciated by farmers in 

 this country to secure their crops in wet seasons. It is 

 now upwards of thirty years since the writer took part in 

 the discussion of the subject, which at that time was an old 

 story at the '• farmer's fireside;"^the practice of the Norlh of 

 Europe, with such improvements as the progress of things 

 miglit suggest, being as familiar topics of conversation to 

 grandpapas as to their grandchildren. 



The various schemes may be divided into four classes : 



1st, hanging up the sheaves in an atmospliere heated by a 

 stove, or with flues under tlie floor of tlio barn, on the prin- 

 ciples adopted in the North of Europe; 3ud, blowing in 

 di7 air among the sheaves, in various ways; 3rd, drawing 

 out the moist air ; and 4^th, thrashing the crop, and drying 

 tlie corn upon a kiln afterwards. 



Experiments to some extent have been made under each 

 of these plans in this country, We oarselves have fre- 

 quently followed the latter plan ; indeed, there was hardly 

 ever a late and wet harvest but what less or more wet corn 

 was thrashed, the straw turned into the straw-yard for litter, 

 and the corn sent to the kiln to be dried, sometimes for 



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