Department at Barn St. EdmuncVs. 587 



without, I advocate no do^-and-tlie-shadow principles. You 

 can't run far before your day ; time itself, that changes all things, 

 changes by degrees. To preserve things we must go back to 

 Our original principles : acting less from habit, more from 

 reflection. Improvement in the yard like improvement in the 

 implements, must be made stop by step — improvement of details 

 resulting from a close application of that science of sciences — 

 applied common sense ; its disturbing influences are possibly 

 laxity, and rhinoceros-skinned routine. As we hear less in these 

 days of judges and more of juries, where for the purpose of 

 exhibitions does the essential difference lie? Prejudices of the 

 pocket are not likely to interfere with the wished-for progress 

 in the future: all we want is concentrated, sympathetic, receptive 

 management. As regards the agricultural mind, insight ; as 

 regards the agricultural voice, fine perception. The agricultural 

 and engineering press is able. " By evil report and good report," 

 when construed together, much may be learned. That press is 

 a sort of tree of knowledge — the pulse of the agricultural body 

 — and on that pulse we should ever have a sensitive finger. The 

 difficulties of the future implement department are great, like 

 the steam-hammer, which can smash a boulder or crack a nut, 

 we must so justly arrange our testing machinery that we do 

 even-handed justice alike to the Triton manufacturer and the 

 minnow embryo. 



Reader, do you know the good old play ' Speed the Plough ? ' 

 and the oft-repeated and now proverbial question " What will 

 Mrs. Grundy say ? " Even Mrs. Grundy would, I am sure, 

 have approved the following preface to a iew practical sug- 

 gestions : — Little things are little things till neglected ; how 

 many things are out of mind Avhen out of view? In our yard 

 there might be at either end of every row of sheds a notice to 

 show the number of the stands comprised in that row ; a sort of 

 thing that those who run may read. There are two nuisances 

 that should be sternly repressed — a sort of " cheap John's " 

 noisy vendor of small wares, and the wet-paint nuisance. There 

 is too much black smoke in the implement yard ; this is the 

 result of bad fuel and bad stoking. Care should be taken to avoid 

 an issue of incorrect prize-lists. The undecorated " tractarians " 

 should be controlled in their gyrations, but not unduly tram- 

 melled. The police of the implement yard requires considera- 

 tion ; fires to be duly raked out by a certain hour. In reference 

 to the Suffolk Societies' Prize, would it not be desirable to 

 obtain a Report on the Plans and Models of Labourers' Cot- 

 tages ? Might not the very efficient, Assistant-Steward of imple- 

 ments be more employed ? There was a want of shelter for the 

 implement trials ; there has been sad loss of all-important time 



