Agricultiwal Implements and Produce. 



49 



are employed as a motive power, it is desirable to make tlie 

 action as easy as possible, and to effect the motion of cutting, 

 reaping, &c., with as light wheels and gear as practicable. Now, 

 these small wheels and their attachments at present in use appear 

 to me to be the very worst and heaviest parts of the machine, 

 and I would earnestly urge upon the makers of reaping-machines 

 the absolute necessity of increasing the diameters and dimensions 

 of the gear which works the cutters, and at the same time to fix 

 and attach the journals and ends of the shafts into one casting, 

 so that they cannot vary in position, but must move, and, techni- 

 cally speaking, go and come with the machine. These altera- 

 tions being made, the proper clearing apparatus being attached 

 to the receiving-boards, we might then look forward to the la- 

 bours of the harvest being pei'formed with much greater cer- 

 tainty and effect than is now accomplished by the present 

 machines. The following table, which Mr, Edward Combes has 

 kindly handed to me, gives the results of the different trials as 

 follows : — 



Trial of Reaping Machines on the Farm of M. Dailly, at Trappes, 

 near Paris, 2ud August, 1855. 



From the above table it will be seen that M'Cormick's 

 American machines performed the most work in tiie least time ; 

 that Atkins' and Manny's executed as nearly as possible the 

 same quantity of work in the same time, there being a fraction in 



VOL. XVII. E 



