Report of the Judges of Implements at Norwich. 
529 
was sufficient merit in any of them to entitle any Exhibitor to 
the prizes offered, but they wish to mention ^lessrs. Dales 
and Sons, Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury, Nos. 1924, 1925, for good 
quality of material and superior workmanship of their exhibits. 
Messrs. Barnard and Lake, No. 1917, Thatch - making 
Machine. — In response to the offer of a special prize by the 
Society for the best " Apparatus for making Thatch for the 
Covering of Stacks," this firm exhibited two thatch-making 
machines. One of these machines was of their old type, 
in which the needles for securing the thatch worked vertically 
downwards through the straw ; the sewn thatch as it comes 
from that machine, when rolled up in bundles, leaves the wrong 
side of the thatch uppermost ; it is therefore necessary to re-roll 
the bundles in the reverse way before they become ready for use. 
This difficulty is got over in the new machine by the position 
of the needles being reversed, and working upwards through 
the straw ; so that the sewn thatch when rolled up is ready at 
once to be laid on the stack. The machine, which costs only 
15 guineas, is driven by hand-power, and consists first of an 
inclined feeding-table on which the straw is laid ; it is fed 
upwards with an intermittent motion by means of two endless 
chains driven by sprocket-wheels underneath the table, motion 
being communicated to these wheels by means of an eccentric 
on the hand-wheel spindle, which actuates a ratchet and ratchet- 
wheel. A crank disc at the end of the first motion shaft com- 
municates, by means of a connecting rod and lever, a recipro- 
cating motion to a horizontal shaft underneath the machine ; a 
lever on this shaft carries a forked casting, in which the two 
needles, working vertically through slots in the table of the 
machine, are fixed. Reciprocating motion is also given to two 
hooks which work above the table, and which engage in the 
loops of string brought up by the needles, in such a manner that 
when the needles have passed upwards through the straw, and 
have begun to return (the string at that moment being slack), 
the hooks move forward and engage in the string, retaining it 
in the form of a loop until such time as the needles again 
ascend, passing through the loops. After this, the loops are 
released by the reverse motion of the hooks, which subse- 
quently move forward, and again catch the string from the 
needles, just as they have begun to descend ; thus forming fresh 
loops, and so on. The machine will take any length of straw, 
and is capable of turning out about 300 feet run of thatch 
per hour. The bundles are cut off in lengths of about 11 feet, 
as being most convenient to handle, and it is found that with 
an average length of straw and enough necessary to overlap, 
about 3J bundles are required to make one square of finished 
