302 Report on the Exhibition and Trial of Implements 



The Exhibition of Implements at Lewes would probably be ver j 

 differently described by different classes of visitors. Casual o\>- 

 servers would report that the encampment of the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society in 1852 displayed about the average amount of red 

 and blue paint, and that there was the usual number of com- 

 plicated, unwieldy machines, which, if good for nothing else,; 

 served, at any rate, thoroughly to puzzle the uninitiated. Even 

 the majority of farmers would probably think that the ploughs 

 and the drills, the steam-engines and the threshing-machines, 

 cum multis aliis, differed little from the very similar-looking im- 

 plements they had been accustomed to see at the Society's exhi- 

 bitions, and would be not unlikely to remark to one another " that 

 it was a good show, but that they had seen it all before." If this 

 were so, the brains of a number of ingenious men would have 

 been racked for many months to lamentably little purpose ; but, 

 fortunately, those whose province it was critically to examine 

 the various implements composing this exhibition are able to 

 give a more satisfactory account of what they saw, and their de- 

 scription of the Show at Lewes might be briefly but emphatically 

 expressed by the one word — Progress — steady, satisfactory progress, 

 which was observable in nearly all classes of implements, from 

 the costly steam-engine down to the three-and-sixpenny digging 

 fork. The details of this progressive improvement will be found 

 in the Judges' Reports ; a few of the leading points only will be 

 selected as the subjects of the following remarks : — 



The greatest novelty in the Society's Show-yard was the class 

 of reaping-machines, which excited the most lively interest,^ 

 especially amongst the very considerable assemblage who saw 

 them at work. The trials of last year had thoroughly roused the 

 curiosity of the public, and shown the feasibility of reaping by 

 machine ; whilst the decisions that were arrived at in different 

 parts of the country were sufficiently conflicting to leave the 

 great contest between M'Cormick and Hussey still an open 

 question. On this occasion the palm of superiority was awarded 

 to Messrs. Ganett's machine, on the Hussey principle, which 

 did its work with remarkable precision. Several other machines 

 were tried, varying more or less in the details of their con- 

 struction, but the real contest lay between the Hussey and 

 M'Cormick principles. Mr. Amos, the consulting engineer, has 

 pointed out in his report, that at this trial the weather was re- 

 markably dry and hot ; and though the corn to be cut was rather 

 green, it was quite dry, and stood perfectly upright, so that the 

 greatest impediments to cutting by machine were not encountered 

 on this occasion, and subsequent trials have shown that the ab- 

 sence of moisture was favourable to machines on the Hussey 



