44 A[/ricultiLral Implements and Produce. 



details of tlie trials have not yet been published, and they are 

 not in my possession. 



These trials do not appear to have been conducted with all the 

 care and exactness necessary to place the decisions beyond the 

 reach of cavil. 



Reaping Machines. 



Though reaping machines have, up to this time, disappointed, 

 the sanguine expectations which were formed of them at their 

 first appearance, the various specimens in the Exhibition were 

 regarded with much curiosity, and the trials of them excited a 

 lively interest. Mr. W, Fairbairn, President of Class VI., has 

 favoured me with the following report on these machines. The 

 name of Mr. Fairbairn will be a sufficient warrant for the value 

 of this report. 



Report ox Reaping Machines. 



Machines of this kind are of great antiquity. They were 

 known to the Romans, but we hear nothing of them during the 

 middle ages ; and from those remote times we have few traces of 

 improvement, or any successful attempts to substitute machine- 

 reaping for the sickle. It was reserved for Mr. Bell of the Carse 

 of Gowrie, in Scotland, in 1826, to construct a machine that 

 answered all the purposes of a good reaper. Mr. Bell has used 

 his machine, and gathered his harvest by it, for the last twenty- 

 nine years, and it is not too much to say that most of the ma- 

 chines now in use are based upon the principle of Bell. There 

 is great similarity in nearly the whole of these machines, and the 

 Universal Exhibition of Paris exhibits nearly the same charac- 

 teristics in principle and construction as those shown at the Ex- 

 hibition of 1851. It is true there are some slight improvements 

 introduced by Mr. M'Cormick and others, but the principle of 

 the machine remains unaltered, excepting only the receiving- 

 boards, which in those brought forward for competition at the 

 Paris fllxhibition are exceedingly variable, and some of them very 

 ingenious. 



The period of the General Exhibition at Paris was most 

 favourable for giving a fair trial to machines of this description, 

 and the month of August afforded an excellent opportunity for 

 testing the merits of each machine by actual experiment. Through 

 the liberality of M. Dailly, a distinguished agriculturist, and 

 member of the jury, a field of oats on his farm at Trappe was set 

 apart for the exclusive purpose of ascertaining the properties and 

 proving the value of each machine. The Imperial Government, 

 always alive to the interests of the community and the advance- 

 ment of mechanical art, took a deep interest in the trials, and, in 



