530 Report on the Exhibition of Implements 



to be greatly improved at Norwich in those points to which atten- 

 tion had been specially directed. 



If the foregoing reasoning be correct (and the facts on which 

 it is founded will not admit of question) the Society may fairly 

 claim to have been in great measure the authors of the very rapid 

 improvement made of late in almost every kind of agricultural 

 implement. The managers of the Society have, therefore, every 

 reason to be satisfied with the past, and it may perhaps not be 

 thought presumptuous to endeavour briefly to show that the 

 prospect for the future is equally encouraging. 



It has been already stated that the trials as at present conducted 

 are effectual for the selection of the best implements exhibited. 

 To have obtained this result is to have done much — it is, in fact, to 

 have attained all that has hitherto been contemplated or desired ; 

 no sooner, however, had it been secured than another point of 

 equal importance suggested itself, and the experience of the 

 Norwich meeting has shown it to be no less attainable than the 

 good results which have already been realized. The object 

 alluded to is to obtain so accurate a register of the force required 

 to work the different kinds of agricultural machinery, that the 

 public and the manufacturers themselves may be informed 

 whether the results obtained are satisfactory, when compared with 

 the means employed. The same arrangements which are required 

 for deciding this question will also in certain cases be useful in 

 showing in a complex machine the respective efficiency of its 

 several parts. To make this more plain, it may be said that what 

 has been hitherto accomplished has been limited to selecting the 

 best of a class — the point now aimed at is to decide whether that 

 class is a good one ; whether, therefore, the best implement in it 

 possesses intrinsic merit, and, if not, which are the defective 

 parts which require amendment. A good illustration of the im- 

 portance of this object occurred in the trial of threshing-machines 

 at Norwich, where two of the best machines produced very nearly 

 equally good results. When, however, the different parts of 

 these machines were separately examined, one was found to excel 

 very much in its horse- works, the other in its barn-works, so 

 that it is fair to presume that if they could have borrowed from 

 one another, both would have been improved, and at any rate 

 neither of them are as good as they will probably be made now 

 that their deficiencies have been pointed out. 



The full importance of this question will probably not be 

 recognised at first sight, but it is one which will assuredly be 

 more and more appreciated in proportion as the necessity becomes 

 more apparent for increasing the amount of capital applied to 

 the cultivation of the land. Leaving all political probabilities 

 and improbabilities out of the question, it is clear that the British 



