338 On Measuring Cattle. 



quite straight whilst measured, and the exact part of the shoulder- 

 blade should be felt. 



It is only by continued practice that any one is enabled to guess 

 the weight of beasts with accuracy : those persons therefore who 

 have only occasionally a few fat cattle to dispose of meet the pur- 

 chaser (who is in the constant habit of buying and proving his 

 judgment by weighing the carcase when dead) upon very un- 

 equal terms; but that great inequality will be much lessened by 

 this aid of measurement. 



It is well known that the weight of timber can be ascertained 

 by external measurement, and, in fact, all solid bodies of the same 

 kind vary in weight according to their size ; but the shape of an 

 ox's body is so very irregular a figure, and so much of the internal 

 part is hollow, that, although one may safely assume that the 

 bodies of two oxen which are the same in size will be nearly the 

 same in weight, yet none of the ordinary rules of calculating the 

 solid contents of bodies are applicable in this case. The rule, 

 therefore, on which the tables are formed must have been disco- 

 vered by the result of repeated experiments, and the only proof 

 which can be given that it is a correct rule is, the experience that 

 it has generally been successful in giving the dead weights of the 

 beasts to which it has been applied. 



I have the honour to be yours, &c. 



C. HlLLVARD. 



Thorpelands, near Northampton, August 7, 1842. 



XXVI. — Report on the Exhibition of Implements at the Bristol 

 Meeting in 1842. 



It would be a superfluous task for the Judges of Imple- 

 ments to preface their Report to the Council with any panegyric 

 on the advance made, since the last Meeting, in the science and 

 practical perfection of Agricultural Machinery. The increased 

 area required for the display of the implements bore ample testi- 

 mony to the fact of a large accession of exhibitors; and the una- 

 nimous judgment of hundreds of disinterested visitors pronounced 

 the exhibition to excel all its predecessors in the variety, inge- 

 nuity, and general perfection of the vast assemblage. These 

 circumstances, so honourable to the mechanical profession, and 

 so encouraging to the founders and supporters of the Society, 

 have rendered the task of the judges one of increased delicacy 

 and difficulty. They have had to discriminate and decide between 

 the qualities of numerous implements of nearly equal merit ; in- 



