AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY 369 



Yet, when the Society was founded, none of its promoters foresaw 

 the importance of the mechanical department. At the Oxford show 

 in 1839 one gold medal was awarded for a collection of implements ; 

 three silver medals were allotted ; and a prize of five pounds was 

 given for "a paddle plough for raising potatoes." At the show at 

 Gloucester in 1853, 2,000 implements were exhibited. The modern 

 system of farming had, in the interval of fourteen years, built up a 

 huge industry employed in providing the agricultural implements 

 that it required. 



In tilling the land, sowing, harvesting, and marketing their crops, 

 modern farmers command a choice of effective implements for which 

 their predecessors knew no substitute. Between 1837 and 1874, 

 ploughs in every variety, light in draught, efficient, adaptable to all 

 sorts of soil, were introduced. Harrows suited for different operations 

 on different kinds of land, scarifiers, grubbers, cultivators, clod- 

 crushers, came into general use. Steam supplied its motive power 

 to the cultivator (1851-6) and to the plough (1857). As an auxiliary 

 in wet seasons, or in scarcity of labour, or on foul land, or to back- 

 wardness of preparation, the aid of steam may be invaluable. But 

 few farmers can afford to own both horse-power and steam-power, 

 and without horses they cannot do. The time may, however, be 

 near at hand when agriculturists may find it not only invaluable, 

 but indispensable, to rely on an arm that never slackens, never tires, 

 and never strikes. Corn and seed drills deposited the seed in 

 accurate lines, and at that uniform depth which materially promotes 

 the uniformity of sample so dear to barley growers. Rollers and 

 land-pressers consolidated the seed-bed. Manure drills distributed 

 fertilisers unknown to farmers in 1837. Horse-hoes gained in 

 popularity by improved steerage gear. CrosskilTs Beverley reaper 

 was followed within the next twenty years by lighter and more 

 convenient machines. Mowing machines, haymakers, horse-rakes, 

 shortened the work of the hay-field. Light carts or waggons super- 

 seded their heavy, broad-wheeled predecessors. Elevators lessened 

 the labour of the harvesters in the yard. Threshing and winnowing 

 machines had been invented in the eighteenth century. But in the 

 South of England, partly perhaps from the difficulty of supplying 

 labourers with winter work, the flail was still almost universal for 

 threshing. From 1850 onwards, however, steam began to be applied 

 as a motive power to machines, and within the next ten years 

 several makers were busily competing in the manufacture of steam- 



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