Report on the Exhibition of Implements. 339 



ventions for perfecting or economising processes in husbandry 

 hitherto unthought of, or considered to be unattainable by the 

 agricultural mechanic, have demanded their investigation, and the 

 appropriation of premium-s ; machines in embryo have been 

 offered to their notice as deserving commendation and encourage- 

 ment ; and their duty has required a frank exposition of the 

 performance — whether excellent or defective — of those imple- 

 ments M^hich were submitted by exhibitors to the practical trial, 

 so wisely and beneficially established by the Society as the test 

 of merit, and the title to distinction. The observations annexed 

 to the several classes of implements assigned by the Council as 

 the subjects of reward, together with the notices of the miscel- 

 laneous articles, the selection of which for prizes was left to the 

 discretion of the judges, will explain the reasons which induced 

 them to award, or, in some cases^ to withhold, the offered pre- 

 miums. These running commentaries will, perhaps, convey a 

 more correct idea of the present state of agricultural mechanism, 

 in most of its branches, than if a distinct summary of what has 

 been, and of what remains to be accomplished, were attempted. 



It has been asked in our Journal "why, but on account of 

 the separate and secluded scene of the farmer's industry, is the 

 spread of agricultural inventions so slow?" and, "^ what, but a 

 central connexion of the cultivators of the soil, can diminish the 

 distance and remove the obstruction?" * The truth of both these 

 observations will find strong and abundant confirmation in the 

 following pages. The energies of thousands are now concen- 

 trated and exerted for the common purpose of collecting, com- 

 paring, and disseminating the scattered experience of agricul- 

 turists, as well as of profiting by every known or possible means 

 of increasing the products of the soil ; and it must be the fault, no 

 longer the misfortune, of a farmer, if he remains in ignorance of 

 what is known or practised by others. 



The judges present the following 



Award of Premiums. 



1. Ploughs. 



To the Hon. M. W. B. Nugent, of Higham Grange, near Hinckley, 



Leicestershire, for his Subsoil-Pulverizer, 15 sovs. 

 To John Howard, of Bedford, for his Two-wheeled Plough, 5 sovs. 

 To the Earl of Ducie, of Woodchester Park, near Stroud, for a Swing 



Plough constructed by Mr. Richard Clyburu, 5 sovs. 

 To John Stokes, of Pauntley Court, near Newent, Gloucestershire, 



for his Two-wheeled Plough with Pulverizing Knives, constructed 



by Mr. Wm. Mason, of Grafton, Warwickshire, 10 sovs. 



* On the Present State of the Science of Agriculture in England, by 

 Ph. Pusey, Esq., M.P., 1839.— Journal of the Society, vol. i. part i., p. 16 J 



m 



