644 



Report to H.R*H. the President^ ^c. 



side of England, in those four counties from which the other great 

 improvements of agriculture have also proceeded. For threshing- 

 machines again, though universal, until very lately no record of 

 their work has been published, so that a farmer in one countv, 

 threshing 13 quarters only a day, could not possibly ascertain that in 

 another county three times that amount was the proper work of a 

 day. 



But it must be further admitted, that few even of our best 

 farmers, though they may possess the new implements, carry their 

 use thoroughly out. It seems evident that the new implements 

 require a new system. As yet many farmers use the drill and 

 do not use the horsehoe afterwards, the use of which is pointed out 

 by the drill, while most farmers still use the plough previously, 

 which the drill may have rendered superfluous. It is of course 

 very difficult to give up old practices, but the result of the whole 

 inquiry into agricultural machinery appears to be this, — that, 

 inasmuch as the new machinery effects a great saving of labour, 

 and is also exceedingly inexpensive, giving also moderate certainty 

 to a business proverbial for its precariousness, farmers ought 

 no longer to bind themselves down by ancient customs in hus- 

 bandry, but should consider at once how these practices may be 

 reformed altogether, in order thoroughly to carry out the advan- 

 tages of modern mechanics. They should look as much to a shed 

 furnished with suitable implements as to their stables, remem- 

 bering that the best of these implements, though it cost as much 

 as a horse, may take the place of a horse, and, furthermore, when 

 once purchased does not, like the horse, entail a weekly expense 

 afterwards. That this extension as well as improvement will come 

 to pass in the mechanics of husbandry there is no reason to doubt, 

 nor that both have been accelerated by the opportunity for care- 

 ful study of agricultural implements which has been afforded 

 during five months through their exhibition, under your Royal 

 Highness's auspices, among all the other products of human 

 industry. 



Appendix to Implemknt Report. 



Account of a subsequent Trial of the American Reapers. 



By H. S. Thompson. 



Reaping-machines. — After the trials at Pusey, the proprietors of M'Cor- 

 mick's reaping-machine challenged all other implement makers to pro- 

 duce one of equal merit, and great mterest was excited in the North Riding 

 of Yorkshire when it was known that Messrs. Deane, Dray, and Co., the 

 purchasers of Hussey's reaping-machine, had accepted the challenge, and 

 that the trial was to come oft' near Guisborough, at the annual meet- 

 ing of the Cleveland Agricultural Society. Under the auspices of this 

 Society a jury of twelve practical farmers was appointed to give the two 



