THE FARMER'S MAGAZLNE. 



ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. 



A Weekly Council was held on Wednesday, the 

 27th of May. Present: Mr. Raymond Barker, V.P,, 

 in the Chair ; Earl of Powis, Dr, Camps, Mr. Goold, 

 Mr. Neill Malcolm, Mr. Pickin, and Mr. Trench. 



The names of 46 candidates were announced for elec- 

 tion at the next meeting. 



Vienna Meeting. — The Earl of Clarendon favoured 

 the Council with the following communication : 



Extracts from a despatch addressed to the Earl of Clarendon 

 by Sir Hamilton Seymour, dated Vienna, May 18, 1857 : 



"I will only then observe shortly, that among the horses 

 exhibited I did not see one very wortliy of that distinction ; 

 that of the beasts there were some of great beauty ; that 

 among these an animal marked No. 244 in the catalogue, 

 which attracted great attention from the circumstance of its 

 being asserted to be a hybrid (the produce of a stag and a 

 cow), is, I am convinced, nothing more than a bull of a fawn 

 colour, and with thin legs ; that I have seen in markets better 

 pigs than any which were exhibited in the 'Angarten;' and 

 that, as I was told, the best sheep were those of the merino 

 breed. 



" Of the machinery, the best — naturally — was that exhi- 

 bited by the English manufacturers, who were very well repre- 

 sented. 



" I am told (but I did not see them) that at the exhibition 

 there were some specimens of very excellent writing paper 

 manufactured out of the leaves of the Maize or Indian Corn. 

 I mention this because it occurs to me that the fact may not 

 be known to our English paper manufacturers. As very bad 

 writing paper ia taade with straw, so very good is to be manu- 

 factured from Maize ; and the plant, though requiring for its 

 full maturity more sun than it would meet with in England, 

 might, I submit, be worthy of the attention of our agricul- 

 turists for the admirable fodder which it supplies, and of our 

 manufacturers for the new purpose to which it is now 

 applied." 



Bird-Island Guano. — The Earl of Clarendon also' 

 favoured the Council with an extract from the report of 

 Captain Paynter, of H.M.S. Brilliant, on the inferior 

 quality of the guano remaining on the Aves Island. 



HoRSE-PowERS. — Mr. Isaac Hartas, of Wrelton, 

 near Pickering, in Yorkshire, favoured the Council with 

 his attendance, for the purpose of submitting to the 

 Members, in full detail, the satisfactory results he had 

 obtained from the experience of 40 diflferent parties in 

 reference to the application of the combined weight and 

 muscular power of horses, exerted on inclined planes, 

 and communicating motion to small machines. The 

 attention of the Council having been called by the Rev. 

 F. G. Holcombe, in December last, to the great con- 

 venience of the employment of an economical power to 

 the working of small machinery, and subsequently 

 by Mr. Chadwick and Mr. Whitworth, it was consi- 

 dered desirable to postpone the consideration of Mr. 

 Hartas's details until the 17th of June next, when a 

 fuller attendance of members might be expected than on 

 that occasion (the Derby Day at Epsom). 



The following information in the meantime may be 

 considered interesting : — 



I. Mr. Amos's Report.— Mr. Hartas, of Pickerinp, ex- 



hibited at the Ripon Meeting of the Yorkshire Agricul- 

 tural Society a single horse-power Thrashing Machine (an 

 American invention), which attracted considerable notice 

 from the novel mode of applying the power. The horse 

 was confined in a narrow gangway, the floor of which v/as 

 an inclined pathway, consisting of a succession of cross 

 boards, connected by pitch chains working over rollers at 

 each end of the gangway, and forming a travelling floor, 

 which, when put in motion, represented a complete tread- 

 wheel. At first sight, it might appear that a horse would 

 require some training before he would work steadily in such 

 a position ; but this is not the case, as any steady horse 

 may be led into the gangway, the floor being made immo- 

 vable by a break under the command of the feeder of the ma- 

 chine. Thehorse'shead having been secured to a headrailat 

 the end of the gangway, the feeder eases the break, and the 

 travelling-floor being considerably elevated in front, the 

 weight of the horse naturally sets it in motion, and compels 

 the horse to exert himself in a walking action, which is all 

 that is required to drive the thrashing part of the machine. 

 This mode of apjilying power was certainly attractive for 

 its novelty, whatever may be the advantage to be derived 

 from driving agricultural machinery by it. Mr. Amos, 

 having subjected the machine to experiment, has furnished 

 us witn the following interesting report : — 



" Ilartas Horse-Power. — A single horse works, by Isaac 

 Hartas, cf Pickering, attracted a great deal of attention. The 

 principle of this machine has been used for some time in Ame- 

 rica. It consists of a movable platform attached to an end- 

 less chain passing over rollers at each end ; this endless plat- 

 form is placed so as to form an inclined plane, upon which the 

 horse walks, and the platform recedes beneath the horse's 

 feet. The platform has cogged 'racks' attached to it, which 

 gear iuto a toothed wheel, which drives machinery. In this 

 case it drove a small thrashing machine, and had also a small 

 chaff-cutter attached to it. The whole arrangement is very 

 simple. As some discussion took place as to the usual effect, 

 or otherwise, a horse could exert, when working with this ma- 

 chine, some careful experiments were made on the machine in 

 question, and on a well-made horse-works, in which the horse 

 walked round the circle in the usual way. In the first expe- 

 riment, one of Richmond and Chandler's Oat Crushers or 

 Linseed Mills was attached to the horse-works, with a dyna- 

 mometer intervening to record the work done. The horse 

 walking at the rate of 2.04 miles per hour, did work equivalent 

 to the raising of 33,1101bs. one foot high per minute. During 

 this experiment, at the rate the horse walked, and taking into 

 consideration the angle of elevation of the platform, the horse 

 would have raised himself to the height of 33.66 feet in one 

 miuute — that is had the platform been stationary and pro- 

 longed indefinitely. The horse with his harness weighing 

 1084.5 lbs., aud this multiplied by 33.66 feet, the height the 

 horse would have raised himself equals 36,5011bs. lifted one 

 foot high per minute. In the second experiment, the horse 

 walked 1.7 miles per hour, and did work, as shown by the 

 dynamometer, equivalent to raising 31,350 lbs. one foot high 

 per minute, during which time he would have climbed 28.21 

 feet, which is equivalent to the raising of 30,594 lbs. one foot 

 high per minute. In this experiment the horse walked and 

 worked exceedingly steadily, and the work he did at that time 

 (31,3501bs. lifted one foot per minute) fairly represented the 

 work a horse can do by this machine. To compare the above 

 with a common horse-works, the horse used in the last expe- 

 riment was yoked with another of similar power and quality, 

 to a two-horse power works, made by Mr. John Barker, of 

 DuuningtOD. The fpower was applied to the same mill and 

 dynamometer, and the work done by each horse was equivalent 

 to 26,500 lbs. lifted one foot high per minute, being about 16 

 per cent, less than the duty done by Mr. Hartas' horse- works. 

 It was apparent to observers that the horses worked equally in 

 all the experiments, and every care the circumstances afforded 

 was taken to obtain the best results. " 0. E. Amos." 



