478 Report on the Trials of Implements at Wolverhampton. 
Elpliick as ever-ready and business-liko assistant-steward, the Judges would 
encounter little difticulty, in their prolonged series of investigations, beyond the 
delays and mishaps which are inseparable from such jniblic field-days. And 
in I'act, apart fmm the failures in competing machinery and hindrances traceable 
to Exhibitors and their men, the principal interruptions and impediments to 
■jirogress arose from the imsettled state of the weather, the weakness of Wolver- 
hampton horse-flesh, and a miscalculation as to the service adequate for main- 
taining the water-supply to the engines at work in the different trial-fields. 
On a future occasion this latter cause of delay will probably be obviated by 
substituting a steam-pump and gas-piping for the slow and irregular relays of 
water-carts. Owing to]the heavy rains, the task of hauling the ponderous pieces 
of machinery into and out of a show-ground of black vegetable soil, which was, 
in parts, ploughed up by innumerable wheels till trucks and trolleys sank in to 
the axles, and of transporting them to the trial-fields, 2>i miles away, may be 
said to have been superhuman. At least it was beyond all bestial power ; 
and one of the great incidents of the meeting was undoubtedly the unlooked-for 
demonstration of the capability of road locomotives and self-propelling engines 
to convey themselves with trains of waggons and other rolling stock over web 
roads, yielding soil, up hills, along narrow winding lanes, and through awkward 
gateways. The jmblic also took many a lesson in the art of getting a bite for 
engine-wheels by means of gravel and cinders on a hard road, spuds or shoes 
on the tires upon soft soil, and beams and planks when the weighty motive- 
power has cut its way down into a hole. As it was, bystanders had many a 
laugh over the many apparently inextricable but always triumphantly sur- 
mounted difficulties of the strong-hearted iron giants ; and it was remarked 
how " Talpa" might fairly claim a royalty on many of those engines, converted 
by force of circumstances into slowly progressing locomotives, armed with 
revolving diggers. 
From the Schedule of Prizes, the Conditions, the General Eegulations, In- 
structions to Judges, and Instructions to Exhibitors (as already quoted), it was 
clear that the trial of steam-cultivating machinery at Wolverhampton was de- 
signed to be not so much a competitive test of steam-tillage against horse-tillage 
as of one set of steam-tilling apparatus against another. Indeed, there ap- 
peared little value in going over the old ground again, merely to show for the 
hundredth time that steam-power can plough or cultivate with greater economy 
and far greater expedition than any force of teams that can be found upon a 
farm. At the very earliest of the Society's trials of steam-ploi\ghs, namely, at 
Chelmsford and Boxted Lodge, in 185(3, the Judges arrived at the result, that 
by Mr. John Fowler's machine "the ploughing was admirably done, fully equal 
in regularity and precision to anything that could be done by horse-labour. 
To estimate the cost of the opeiation was a work of great care and time ; and 
Mr. Amos has given the result in the table which is subjoined. By this table 
the money cost of ploughing is shown to be 7s. 25a'. per acre. The Judges are 
of opinion that the cost of the like work by horse-power would be at least 7s. 
per acre, leaving the cost of the two processes almost identical." Mr. Amos 
had allowed, however, only 15 per cent, upon prime cost of machinery for 
repairs, depreciation, and interest of capital, and assumed as a basis of calcula- 
tion 1000 acres to be ploughed annually. At Chester, in 18G8, the Judges 
allowed 15 per cent, upon first cost for repairs and depreciation, together with 
5 per cent, interest of capital, making 20 per cent, spread over 200 days' working 
in a year. They reported that Fowler's apparatus ploughed light land at the 
rate of 7* acres in ten hours, and heavy land at the rate of 5 acres in ten hours ; 
the total cost being in the first case 6s., and in the latter 9s. 2d. per acre. " Our 
estimate," they said, " of the quality and value of the work thus performed is 
that the light land could not have been done by horse-] lowcr for less than 8s. 
per acre ; that the heavy land could not have been ploughed for less thaa 
