ciii ) 



1841. 



REPORT 



ON THE 



EXHIBITION OF IMPLEMENTS. 



The Judges of Implements, in presenting to the Council their award of 

 prizes, cannot refrain from expressing the gratification they felt at the 

 splendid exhibition of implements and machines submitted to their 

 inspection ; nor can they omit offering their congratulations to the 

 Society on the good effects which have already resulted from the public 

 exhibitions of implements at the Society's Meetings, in stimulating the 

 talent of the mechanic and the zeal of the husbandman. At Oxford 

 the show-yard may be said to have presented an epitome of the state of 

 agricultural mechanism existing in 1839, the era of the formation of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England. No spectator of that show can 

 have failed to be struck with surprise and admiration at the Liverpool 

 exhibition. At Oxford there were some examples of good machinery 

 and workmanship, but many more of rude, cumbrous, and ill-executed 

 implements. At Liverpool many machines were exhibited not only of 

 surpassing skill in contrivance and execution, but also having for their 

 object the effecting of processes in tillage-husbandry of the most refined 

 nature and acknowledged importance, but hitherto considered of very 

 difficult practical attainment. Some of these may already be considered 

 as forming part of the necessary apparatus of every well-managed farm, 

 and to be essential to its economy and profit. This vast stride in the 

 mechanics of agriculture, made within so short a period, has doubtless 

 arisen from the congregating together of agriculturists and mechanicians 

 from all parts of the empire ; and a still higher perfection in machinery 

 may be confidently anticipated from the opportunity offered, under the 

 auspices of the Society, of periodically contrasting and estimating the 

 merits of varied implements used for similar purposes in different 

 localities and soils. It is apparent that the manufacture of even the 

 commoner instruments has already, to a great extent, passed out of the 

 hands of the village-ploughwright and hedge-carpenter, and been trans- 

 ferred to makers possessed of greater intelligence, skill, and capital. The 

 improved style of finish, the greater lightness and elegance of" construc- 

 tion, and the generally superior adaptation of the means to the end, in 

 every class of implements, were sufficient manifestations of the beneficial 

 results arising from the encouragement given by the Society to these 

 objects. Neither were examples wanting in the higher classes of ma- 

 chines to show that the fourth important object for which the Society 



