THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



iron clip, with strong loop screws, and being made 

 to slide on the beam, the angle of the coulter can 

 be altered as required. Indeed, any adjustment 

 can be made almost instantaneously. One great aim 

 has been to free every portion of the plough from 

 complication, and to fit each part in such a simple 

 manner that an ordinary ploughman may be able 

 to replace anything subject to wear or breakage 

 when in the field, without difficulty. In a word, 

 the success of the Champion Plough has been 

 achieved by the continual observance of these three 

 great principles — practical perfection of design, 

 excellence of material and workmanship, and sim- 

 plicity of construction. 



The first iron wheel-plough, somewhat after this 

 fashioning, was exhibited by Mr. Howard at the 

 Cambridge Meeting ofthe Royal Agricultural Society 

 in 1840. But it was years before other makers 

 could be induced to take to the iron work, and the 

 Bedford plough had to contend against an amount 

 of prejudice by this time pretty well worn out. A 

 plough is now made at the Britannia manufactory 

 at the rate of one in every ten minutes, and more 

 than fifty thousand have been sold since the Great 

 Exhibition in 'Fifty-one. The Prize Lists of the 

 "West of England Society tell to where some of 

 these have been addressed. The Royal Agricul- 

 tural Improvement Society of Ireland has given 

 others of them a welcome ; while the Journal of 

 the Highland Society narrates how at Berwick 

 in 'Fifty-four, and again in Edinburgh at the 

 remarkable meeting of last summer, even Scotch 

 clanship and prejudice had to bow before the 

 English *' Champion." In fact, there is scarcly now 

 a district in England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales 

 but into which the Bedford plough has literally 

 penetrated. And there is scarcely a surer sign of 

 the advance of civilization than that bit of light 

 blue shadowed, as an artist would say, under a 

 hedge-row, or travelling merrily down the furrow at 

 the tails of two smart-stepping easy-going horses. 

 Then, the far distant colonies of Australia and New 

 Zealand take up the echo of its usefulness, and get 

 more and more clamorous in their calls for it. 

 The Cape farmers have it in every-day comparison 

 with its American rivals, while the whole Continent 

 of Europe scarcely knows any English invention 

 better than the Bedford plough. France, Russia, 

 and Austria have long had it in work. A gold medal 

 of honour from the Paris Agricultural Exhibition in 

 1855 found a home in Bedfordshire, and another 

 gold medal from the same famous capital in 1856. 

 A third gold medal was claimed at Viennain 1857, 

 and the Grand Diploma awarded during the same 

 year on the occasion of the Great Hungarian 

 Meeting at Pesth. To attempt anything hke an 

 enumeration of the prizes taken by the Howards' 



})lough in this country would involve an almost 

 endless iteration that is fortunately not necessary. 



In the year 1 842, entire attention having been 

 directed so far to perfecting the plough, the Messrs. 

 Howards commenced the manufacture of harrows. 

 Their success here has been equally signal, and 

 they may be fairly said to have revolutionized the 

 notions of making a harrow quite as much as they 

 have done those of a plough. They have at pre- 

 sent by far the greatest trade in this implement, 

 and deservedly so, too. At the two last trials of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society, at Chelmsford, in 

 1856, and at Warwick in 1859, the Firm took the 

 first premiums for harrows in every class. The 

 only other agricultural implement the Howards 

 have been sending out is the horse rake, and for 

 this they are as much distinguished. There is no 

 House can compare with them for the orders they 

 execute; and since the Royal meeting at Lewes, 

 in 1852, their rake has never been beaten. Still, 

 to be prepared when " the doom of the plough" 

 does come, they have lately taken up Smith's 

 Woolston Cultivator, and with hourly increasing 

 credit for the manner in which they turn it out. 

 Since the year 1850, the Howard Patents have in- 

 cluded five for improvraents in ploughs, others for 

 horse rakes and harrows, one for an improvement 

 in this steam tillage apparatus, another for a mode 

 of chilling and hardening cast-iron, as well as one 

 for a system of making moulds for castings. 



In 1850 Mr. John Howard, the founder of the 

 Firm, after having ably done his duty by it, with- 

 drew from the business. This, however, was rather 

 from a feeling that he left its further development 

 in safe hands than from any physical decay, or 

 want of energy on his own part. Even now, although 

 approaching seventy years of age, be evinces great 

 activity of mind and body. Indeed he fulfilled the 

 office of Mayor so ably in the preceding year, that 

 he has now again been elected to the same high 

 distinction in his native town. Singularly enough, 

 it is now just a hundred years since one of his 

 ancestors filled the chief magistrate's chair at 

 Bedford. Whatever promise the father may have 

 made for his sons, he has lived to see realized. 

 The elder of the two at present in the House — 

 Mr. James Howard — had of course, for some 

 time previous to his occupying this position, 

 taken a very active and leading part in its 

 management, and in the extension of its trade. 

 As the subject of our portrait— and a very striking 

 one it will be admitted to be — we must say a word 

 or two more upon this gentleman's career. He 

 was, then, born at Bedford, in October, 1821, and 

 educated at the Commercial Schools, so famous 

 for the many advantages they offer to those enabled 

 to avail themselves of the Harper Foundation. 



