THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



185 



formed in a manner far surpassing any machine without 

 self-delivery which had been tried iu this rather summary 

 and, owing to the weather, most unsatisfactory fashion. 

 This machine, though a novelty to many persons at this 

 meeting, has been very extensively used, and the makers 

 are at this moment altering many of the IT ussey machines 

 to their improved form. The orivinfr-wheel is of larger 

 diameter — avoiding the liability to sledge, and conse- 

 quently choke when running into a furrow ; the cutter- 

 bar is hung by a sling, which relieves it of a great amount 

 of the friction previously found to waste so much powc r ; 

 the speed of the knives is much less than that of Dray's ; 

 and the driver can alter the dip of the cutters, by a screw 

 attached to the shafts, which are used instead of the 

 pole, and give greater steadiness of draught and steerage. 

 One horse was used with the back-delivery, and two 

 horses walked along more briskly with the machine, 

 having the side- delivery platform attached. In delivering 

 sideways in the rear of the horses, two men are employed : 

 one using a rake, as with Dray's machine, pushing the 

 corn back upon the platform in portions ; and the other, 

 stationed upon the rear of the machine, raking off these 

 portions directly sideways, and leaving them in very 

 neatly laid bunches upon the ground, ready for tyinji. 

 The cutting is so excellent, the delivery so good, the 

 draught so light, the price so moderate* (£20) that a 

 universal opinion was expressed in favour of this great 

 improvement upon Dray's machine. It was clear, how- 

 ever, that the reapers which delivered the corn in- 

 dependently of manudt labour, must be the real com- 

 petitors for the prize ; and there being advantages in 

 each not possessed by the other, and defects peculiar to 

 each respectively, it was difficult to predict how the 

 decision of the judges would fall. As will be seen from 

 the prize list, they wisely gave both implements their 

 approval by dividing the prize equally. Aud a special 

 silver medal was awarded to Cuthbert for his " new and 

 improved principle of construction." 



Now for a word or two on the steam. ploughs. Mr. 

 Fowler's is just the same machine that gained the £500 

 prize at Chester ; and before this had been decided by 

 the Royal Agricultural Society's Council in London, 

 the judges at Northallerton had fleterminedupon award- 

 ing him the Yorkshire Society's prize of ^''50. The 

 land worked on was a very strong clover-ley, so tough 

 that a furrow of ten inches wide by six inches deep was 

 considered to be three -horse ploughing. The work was 

 turned over exceedingly well, at the rate (stoppage in- 

 cluded) of seven acres in a day of ten hours, at an ex- 

 pense (allowing 20 per cent, per annum for wear and 

 tear) of about eight shillings per acre. The saving of 

 some four shillings per acre, as compared with the cost 

 by horse-labour, at once entitles Mr. Fowler's machine 

 to be considered as "an economical substitute" for the 

 common plough. The hands engaged in working the 

 appararus are the engine-driver, two men with the 

 plough, two boys regulating the rope-carriers , &c., 

 and the water-cart man and horse. The price, with a 

 double-cylinder 10-horse portable engine, is ^'650; with 

 a 7-horse ordinary portable engine, .£450. Tbe wind- 

 lass is connected with or taken apart from the engine in 

 a quarter of an hour, and four horses with two drivers 

 can remove the whole machinery into another field in about 

 a quarter of a day. The Cotgreave trenching-plough, 

 going two furrows deep, is a most astonishing implement ; 

 and with tliis the ground was broken up 12 to 14 inches 

 deep, and turned over with the subsoil exposed in a 

 manner fully equal to thst of spade labour ; and for 

 some 14s, or 16s. an acre the steam machinery did 

 work fully equal in value to that which men with spades 

 and picks would require at least £i an acre to effect. 



Mr. Eddingtoa's apparatus consists of two powerful 

 windlasses, upon the top of which are placed two 



ordinary portable 8 -horse engines, and these being 

 stationed one on each headland, haul the implement up 

 and down the field by wire rope and winding-barrels. 

 Tiie implements worked were large scarifiers constructed 

 by Coleman, and Fowler's ploughs. The hands engaged 

 are two engine drivers, two men at the windlasses, two 

 men with the implement, and two men to attend to the 

 shifting forward of the engines, the water, &c. It is 

 intended to work two implements at once, passing each 

 other in opposite directions, with a space of twelve or 

 twenty yards between them ; the engines moving for- 

 ward along the headland, when this portion of ground 

 has been completed. The work did not proceed very 

 satisfactorily, and though the engines can travel of their 

 own accord along the road, and are not difficult to run 

 up to or down from the top of the windlasses by 

 means of inclines, the arrangement was considered far 

 too costly for the farmer's use at present. 



After the trial of reapers and inspection of the steam- 

 ploughs, a number of scarifiers, parers, grubbers, &c., 

 were tried, when Bentall's and Coleman's, as usual, did 

 beautiful work. Woofe's paring plough attracted general 

 admiration for the easy and perfect manner in which it 

 sliced off the sward an inch deep, and turned it over, 

 without missing or clogging ; and a new cultivator, or 

 " twitch eradicator," of Mr. Clay, of Wakefield, was 

 approved for its novel method of lifting out the teeth 

 backward instead of forward, so that they would rise 

 out of the ground of their own accord, and clear them- 

 selves of rubbish. 



In the show-yard was a very large and splendid col- 

 lection of agricultural implements, shown by ninety ex- 

 hibiters, including Barker of Dunnington, Bentall, 

 Brown and May, Busby, Clayton, Shuttleworth, and 

 Co., Coleman, Cro&skill, Davy Brothers, Foster, Goucher, 

 Harland, Ilornsby and Sons, Howard of Bedford, 

 Humphries, Magnell of Northallerton, the North of 

 England Implement Company, Patterson, Reeves, 

 Richmond and Chandler, Robey and Co., Rujton, 

 Proctor and Co., Sawney, Smith and Ashby, aud Tuxford 

 and Sons. There were no trials of steam-engines, but 

 our prize list shows that the judges took the wise course 

 of awarding commendations as well as the single prize 

 offered by the society, for engines in which " simplicity 

 of construction, durability, and consequent safety in 

 working, are considered, equally with the economy of con- 

 sumption of coal." The premium here again confirmed 

 the Chester award, going, as it did, to the Tuxfords, of 

 Boston. Perhaps the Judges might very well have 

 been a little more liberal in the appreciation of imple- 

 ments and machines distributed through the various 

 stands. 



The show of stock was satisfactory in every respect, 

 and in some departments larger and better than the 

 society ever had before. The entries of cattle were 142 

 against 117 last year ; sheep, 102, less than last year; 

 pigs, 101, the same as last year ; horses, 210, or less 

 than last year ; poultry, considerably less than befoie. 



The shorthorns are certainly a wonderful show, from 

 the high standard of excellence observable in every class 

 and almost in every animal. The " bulls of any age " form 

 a remarkably fine class — with Lord Feversham's " 5th 

 Duke of Oxford," of magnificent quality , again conqueror 

 here, as he was at Chester ; Mr. Wetherell's bull, that took 

 the second prize at the Lincolnshire meeting at 

 Grantham; Mr. Barroby's " Marc Antony," second at 

 Chester, were both but "commended" here, being 

 beaten by Mr. Wetherell's " Statesman," the first prize 

 bull at Grantham. The yearling bulls are, some of 

 them, amazingly good and handsome; but some few 

 ordinary animals lower the character of the class as a 

 whole. Mr. Fawkes's second prize bull is of splendid 

 quality, with a wide chest, but not quite of the size and 



