148 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Mr. Sherringham declined. 



Mr. C. Overman (Harling) offered 52 tods, including 

 7 tods of hogget, to Mr. Sherringham at 42s. 



Mr. SiiERRiNGHAM declined. 



Mr. Beck proposed the health of Mr. Caldwell. (Cheers.) 



Mr. Caldwell responded, but confined himself simply to 

 the expression of his thanks. 



Mr. BuRROUGHES offered Mr. Hitchcock eight score hog 

 fleeces, and six score ewe fleeces at 443. per tod all round. 



Mr. Hitchcock offered 423. 



Mr. BuRROUGHES offered his brother's wool — three score 

 half-bred Leicester hoggets, two score black-faced ewe hoggets, 

 and nine score of ewes, to Mr. Everard at 443. 



Mr. Everard declined. 



" The Yeomanry of Norfolk and Suffolk." 



Mr. G. Gayford and Mr. W. Beck responded. The latter 

 gentleman offered his wool, 20 tods of ewe, 45 tods of Down 

 hog, and 10 tods of half-bred hog, to Mr. Sherringham at 483. 



Mr. Sherringham declined. 



Mr. Place offered 100 tods of ewe and 5 tods of hog to 

 Mr. Overall at 403. 



Mr. Overall offered 383. 



Mr. HiGGS offered Mr. Overall 100 sheets of good clean- 

 bred ewe at 41s. per tod. He did this to test the value of wool. 



Mr. Overall said he would give 40s. 



No further offer being made, a few other formsl toasts were 

 drunk, and the company adjourned to the yard below. Here 

 business wss resumed, the public proceedings beicg con- 

 sidered, curiously enough, as only useful in giving a tone to 

 the private transactions below. 



TRIAL OF BOYDELL'S TRACTION ENGINE, 



A considerable portion of the company attended in the 

 course of the evening an exhibition of Boydell's engine and 

 endless railway, for ploughing by direct traction. The exhibi- 

 tion took place in a field near the railway station, and two en- 

 gines were on the ground, one 7-horse, and the other of 10- 

 horse power. The smaller engine was an ordinary portable 

 agricultural one, fitted with an endless railway apparatus, and 

 capable of self-propulsion by means of a kind of strap-chain. 

 Tlie credit of this useful adaptation of Boydell's ingenious in- 

 vention to the existing agricultural engine is due to Mr. Bur- 

 rell, of the St. Nicholas's Foundry, Thetford, by whom both 

 the engines on the ground were constructed. The engines 

 snorted and clamped over the land — which was, like all that in 

 the neighbourhood, a light friable soil, in a very dry state— at a 

 good round pace; but they were obliged to reduce their speed 

 in turning round, and to take a good wide sweep to effect that 

 object. The furrows in the body of the fi<ld were straight and 

 regular, and equally good ones could be probably made by 

 cross journeys at each end, although the action of the ploughs 

 seems to be defective wherever it is necessary to make a sharp 

 turn. The general result was, however, decidedly satisfactory, 

 and in the words of an observer, whose opinion is entitled 

 to considerable weight, " The only question is, will it pay ?" 

 It should be stated that the seven-horse engine dragged after 

 it one double plough, thus effecting the work of four horses; 

 ■while the ten-horse engine supplied a sturdy onward motion 

 to three double ploughs (Burrell's construction), thus playing 

 the part of twelve horses. The presence of a driver and a 

 steersman on each engine, in addition to a man at each plough, 

 is also an element which should be taken into consideration. 



Mr. Boydell, the painstaking inventor of the apparatus, was 



on the ground ; and some idea may be formed of the sacrifice 

 of time and money which he has made in bringing his plans 

 to perfection from the circumstance — reported among the 

 visitors — that he has expended £15,000 iu developing his ideas. 

 The placing upon the wheels of the engines the great flapping 

 masses of wood and iron upon which the endless railway is 

 fitted, may seem at first a sinaple matter ; but the minute diffi- 

 culties to be overcome must have been very great, and the so- 

 lution of the question of the steerage must have been especially 

 embarrassing. Our readers will, therefore, be glad to hear that 

 there appears to be some probability that the engines will gra- 

 dually be brought into use. Four of them have been already 

 constructed by Mr. Burrell, the only implement-maker we 

 believe who is devotiug his attention to them ; and a fifth, of 

 ten-horse power, is now in the St. Nicholas workshops, and 

 will be exhibited at the Salisbury meeting of the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society. One of the four engines completed, of 

 twenty-horse power, has bsen purchased by the Government, 

 and is about to be despatched to Woolwich. It should also be 

 added that on Friday Mr. Burrell was favoured with a visit 

 from General Menlikoff, an agent of the Russian Government, 

 who inspected the details of the inveation for the information 

 of the ruling powers at St. Petersburgh. One of the first 

 engines constructed was sold to the Russian authorities, but 

 was lost in the Gulf of Finland. 



The scene which the exhibition of Friday evening presented 

 was a highly suggestive one. Below the field in which the 

 engines literally " ploughed their way," the rushing trains of 

 the Eastern Counties Railway proclaimed the full development 

 of the locomotive. Immediately before the eye of the visitor 

 was a new application of the same power, crude perhaps in its 

 details, but tolerably complete in its results — an apparatus 

 which time may perhaps mature into a rival of its mo;e perfect 

 prototype. Iu the background were the grey old ruins of a 

 former age, the productions of men who would have shrunk, 

 perhaps, with horror from the running to and fro and increas- 

 ing knowledge of those who have succeeded them on the stage 

 of life. 



PROFITABLE CROSSING OF LINCOLN 

 AND LEICESTER SHEEP. 



Sir, — I am now at Brigstock, in North Northamptonshire, 

 where seme of the most eminent graziers say that the Lincoln- 

 shire sheep, judiciously crossed with the Leicester, npon all 

 land where clover and turnips can be produced, are second to 

 no sheep in England for profit ; as the Leicester gives the 

 proper cast or mould, and feed at early maturity, and the 

 Lincoln gives a heavy coat of wool, adds stamina and increases 

 the size and weight of mutton over and above the pure-bred 

 Leicester. One of the beat farmers here wisely says we ought 

 to try to obtain a breed °of sheep off a Bakewell or Leicester 

 frame, with a heavy coat of Lincolnshire wool on their batks, 

 to enable them to bear the cold, cutting, bleak north-east winds 

 better than light woolled sheep, which appears like common 

 sense and reason ; as the heaviest-coated sheep will bear the 

 cold the best, and the light-coated sheep will be?r the heat the 

 best ; therefore the heavy woolled sheep are the best fcr a cold 

 climate, and the light-woolled sheep are the best for a hot one. 

 The experienced and practical farmer says, " Shear your heavy- 

 woolled sheep before the sun gets too hot, and not let the heat 

 of the sun waste their fat flesh by sweating them excessively." 



Brigstock, near Thrafston, June 20, S, Arhsby, 



