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VI. — Report on the Trials of Shcaf-Dindeis and Miscellaneous 
Implements at the Bristol Meeting. By JoHN CoLEMAN, of 
Riccall Hall, York. 
SnEAF-BlNDERS. 
It will be in the recollection of those who take an interest in 
these machines, that the Judges at the Trials at Aigburth last 
year did not consider that either of the three machines then 
tried was sufficiently adapted for an English crop to justify the 
award of the Gold Aledal. They, however, recommended, and 
the Stewards confirmed, the award of a Silver Medal to Walter 
A. Wood, and they highly commended the binding-mechanism 
of F. D. Osborne and Co. At that trial, as reported on by the 
late Mr. Jno. Hannam, only three inventions were presented, 
and these all by Americans. In this country it is only quite 
recently that attention has been directed to sheaf-binders, 
probably five or six years would represent the age of the oldest 
patents ; whereas on the other side of the Atlantic it is twenty- 
two years ago that the first patent was taken out. 
There is another reason why the Americans are so far ahead 
of us in this matter. There, enterprise has been stimulated by 
the greater certainty of the value of the prize that awaited the 
successful inventor. Here, it is only recently that the increasing 
difficulty as to labour has forced upon our conviction the 
importance of the invention. Again, it may be that the natural 
conditions of a riper crop, drier climate, and shorter straw, are 
more favourable to this class of machinery. This, however, is a 
subject for experience. English enterprise is now at work, and, 
crude as have been some of the attempts, we cannot doubt that in 
course of time we shall have machinery of our own, possibly more 
suitable for our crops than the inventions of our neighbours. 
In gauging the progress of inventions in this direction, it 
must not be forgotten that the experimenter has very limited 
opportunities of practically working his machinery. The har- 
vest lasts but a short time — three or four weeks at most — and 
then there must be a year s interval before the alterations which 
this short experience may have suggested can be actually 
tested. Consequently, it may be several years before practical 
efficiency can be obtained. 
To Mr. Walter A. Wood, of Hoosick Falls, New York, much 
credit is due for having persevered with unflagging energy, 
and at one time amid much that was discouraging, in perfecting 
the various inventions combined in his machine. 
Tlie first patent referred to above was taken out by Messrs. 
