6 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



embellishment that adds materially to the effect. 

 It is really a most handsome pile, and as fine an 

 advertisement for either owners or designer as could 

 have been hit upon. No man with his eyes open can 

 pass without inquiring "what place is that ?" While, 

 in answer, some communicative countryman is sure 

 to dilate on "the immense business— thousands 

 on thousands of ploughs they turn out in a year" — 

 " sent all the world over" — " very clever fellows 

 those Howards of Bedford" — and so on. Sub- 

 joined is a bird's eye view of one of the sights on 

 the midland line, so that " any one going on" will 

 know what to look out for, after he has come 

 through Cardington Field. 



• Still to appreciate them properly he should get 

 out at the adjoining station, and spend a few 

 hours in looking over the Works. Ornament 

 and effect are merely subsidiary points, after 

 all. Economy of labour, convenience of construc- 

 tion, and the most perfect observance of order 

 and classification, have been the great things the 

 architect has had to aim at. A tramway runs 

 completely round the whole range of Works, 



and through every shop, with a turn-table in the 

 centre of each. The coal and fuel when landed at 

 the wharf are thus carried up to and weighed out 

 to every v.'orkman, by others exclusively employed 

 for this purpose. The wrought-iron is delivered 

 from the railway by similar means, and cut off by 

 steam-power to the several lengths required. The 

 same system is adopted with everything else in use 

 here, no man being suffered to leave his work, but 

 being continually " fed" from the stores. As is 

 the plan in a few of the large modern cotton mills, 

 the raw material passes through a succession of 

 hands to gradual completion, and at least a hun- 

 dred and twenty different men have their allotted 

 bits and parts in the make of a single plough. 

 Wherever it is at all available, the aid of machinery 

 has been called in, and devoted to an infinity of 

 purposes, from the raising of the iron into the 

 furnaces, down even to the grinding of that standing 

 colour, the blue paint. Nearly all this machinery 

 is cotemporary with the date of the building it is 

 fixed in, scarcely any of that previously in use 

 having been transplanted. 



R Palgrave, Poll Mall, Aicliitect. 



THE BRITTANIA WORKS, BEDFORD. 



The rule of the House is Piece-work. The metal 

 is melted, the ploughs painted, and the very goods 

 packed by this system of measurement. " The 

 Forwarding Department" is in itself a kind of rail- 

 way station, and one far more complete and metho- 

 dical in its management than many of these are. 

 The great and indispensable feature in working by 



the piece is the absolute necessity for continua 

 supervision, and in addition to a number of able 

 overseers "Mister Fred," is seldom off the premises. 

 His brother we should say has appeared as a 

 lecturer at well as an author. Soon after the 

 opening of the Institute he delivered an address to 

 the members on " Labour and Wages," which was 



