372 Report on the Exhibition and Trial of Inqjlements 



reaping. The question of price is also another serious matter between the 

 parties. Farmers are alarmed at the expensiveness of an implement that can 

 only be used during two or three weeks in the year. Makers probably are 

 not yet sufficiently at home in the manufacture to do it economically. 

 The following are the prices of the machines before us : 



Samuelson's ...... £25 



Burgess and Key's ..... 25 



Crosskill's Bell . . . . . 42 



Dray and Co.'s . . . . . 18 



Hussey's ...... 25 



It was calculated, in conjunction with Mr. Amos, that in the interest, &c., 

 of the purchase, and in the wear and tear of Crosskill's Bell's Reaper, ave- 

 raging about 12 acres of work a-day, the cost would be, on an arable farm of 

 400 acres, about Qcl. an acre. It is probable that a farm of this size is the 

 extent that one implement could manage. If the grass crops could be cut by 

 the same implement, of course the expense would be reduced. If 12 acres is 

 the average of Bell's implement per day, a proportionably less amount must be 

 taken for the others, which cut from 6 in. to 12 in. less in width, and are more 

 frequently obliged to go one way empty. The manual labour for each machine 

 appears to be about equal. One man accustomed to the work will manage 

 Bell's as well as one man can drive and guide a plough. If the other machines 

 have two men, one for the horses and another seated upon it with a rake, the 

 latter should not be put to the account of the machine, because he is gathering 

 for the binder — he is performing a division of the harvest labour. Horse 

 labour is the most serious item against Bell, in comparison with the others : 

 judging by the way in which the horses were obliged to put out their strength, 

 it is very doubtful whether four strong horses, in two relays, would be suffi- 

 cient for the daily cutting of 12 acres of heavy crops. 



The economy and efficiency of the mower's scythe is the point these 

 machines have to reach and surpass. The process of gathering they have 

 already entered into ; and how soon they will be able to accomplish that of 

 binding remains to be seen. 



There were seen in the implements under review individual properties in 

 each of a valuable kind, and also peculiar deficiencies which in a degree neu- 

 tralized the good ; again was seen amongst the whole most of the qualities 

 requisite for a good implement ; therefore, were the Judges, associated with 

 other officers of the Society present, led, although they felt they were 

 throwing a temporary impediment in the way of those who were anxious to 

 procure a Reaper, to recommend in one or other of the machines, or in a new 

 one, a combination of the properties which the present state of agriculture 

 requires, and to embody such an opinion in the following awardj which they 

 drew up before they separated at the termination of the trial : — 



" Pusey, Berks, August 17th, 1853. 

 ^' In making their award, the judges regret that, after having tested the 

 Teaping machines at Gloucester upon rye unripe, and consequently unfit for 

 harvesting, they have now again been compelled (at this adjourned trial), from 

 two days' extremely wet weather, to test the machines selected upon corn in 

 such a state as, under ordinary circumstances, would not have been cut ; they, 

 however, have given the ditferent reapers as full a trial as possible upon wheat, 

 barley, oats, and beans ; and, after carefully testing their merits, have unani- 

 mously awarded the Society's prize of 20/. to Messrs. Crosskill's ' Bell's 

 Reaper.' 



" They also ' highly commend' Messrs. Burgess and Key's reaper, upon 

 M'Cormick's principle*^; and they ' commend' Messrs. Dray and Co.'s reaper, 

 ti'pon Hussey's principle. 



