27'2 The Development of Agricultural Machinery, 
it may well be asked, Who buys up the implement section of the 
show-yard annually, with its six thousand machines, representing 
some 20,000Z. of value, the whole being but a small fraction of 
the implement-makers' yearly production of machinery — and 
why ? 1 " No common motive can have induced men of solid 
character and fixed habits suddenly [this was written of steam 
in 1864] to buy thousands of costly machines whose construc- 
tion they don't understand, and whose adoption forces them to 
change many of their former plans and renders useless much of 
their former expenditure. The cause is competition. The British 
corn-grower is competing with the corn-growers of all nations. 
The whole world is running a race to secure the best market for 
its productions, and the repute of our wealth and universality 
of our commerce are year by year turning the current more 
and more towards our shores. The increased area from which 
supplies are now drawn to the British market, and the diminished 
cost of transport, have so lowered the average price of grain 
as to make it necessary for the English farmer to reduce his 
outgoings in order still to grow corn at a profit. These out- 
goings consist principally of rent, wages, and expenses. Has 
he any prospect of a reduction of rent ? Is it not notorious 
that the competition for farms is such that the tendency is 
toward a rise rather than a fall in rents ? Can wages be 
lowered ? It is equally notorious that wages have increased 
considerably during the last ten years, and that they still tend 
to rise. The only available expedient then appears to be to 
reduce the cost of cultivation ; hence the unusual expenditure 
now being incurred for the purchase of machinery ; so that this 
outlay, though apparently rash and hazardous, is really a work 
of necessity, an indispensable condition of the British corn-grower 
holding his own." (H. S. Thompson, Journal 1864.) 
All which, true as it is, furnishes no figures to the credit 
side of the farmer's account against implements, and, badeed, 
these are very difficult to procure, the question of his advantage 
by their use being too complex for settlement by a mere com- 
parison of wages, such, for example, as might be made between 
the cost of threshing by the flail and by the machine, of hay- 
tossing by hand or by the tedder, or of reaping by the hook 
and the harvester. Time is so important a factor in all these 
1 Some few years back the writer attempted to collect from implement- 
makers statistics which would show the total value of agricultural implements 
manufactured annually in this country. Some firms responded to his ques- 
tions, but many refrained, anil nothing definite was consequently obtained; 
but enough was gathered to place it beyond doubt that the value in question 
considerably exceeds 3,000,0002., the larger but unascertainable portion of the 
machines representing this sum being exported. 
