256 Rep&rt on the Trials of Reaping Machines at Leamington, 
The trials began on Monday, August 14th, on the Earl of War- 
wick's Heathcote Sewage Farm, near Leamington, to which ren- 
dezvous the machines entered lor competition had been conveyed 
from Birmingham in charge of the Society's officers. When 
Mr. Jenkins unlocked the doors of the barn which held in densely 
packed order the whole of the machines, with their multitude 
of wheels, platforms, frames, poles, rake-arms like serrated wings, 
and finger-bars like shining rows of teeth (so that a labourer at 
once dubbed it " The Chamber of Horrors "), it was found that 
two reapers exhibited by Mr. William Anson Wood at Bir- 
mingham had, in some unexplained manner, disappeared out 
of custody. This still further reduced the competition, already 
limited to small proportions by the absence of several of the 
most eminent British and American makers. 
As on previous occasions, one of the Beverley Iron and 
Waggon Company's Two-horse Reapers, alone capable of per- 
forming the work, was employed by the Stewards to open out 
the necessary rectangular plots in the ample crops of wheat and 
barley, which did credit both to the sewage treatment and to 
Lord Warwick's able farm-manager, Mr. Tough. 
Class 1. Reaping Machines with Self-delivery in Sheaf, clear 
of the Horse Track. — The first trial was with Class 1, Sheaf- 
delivery Reapers, on a field of 11 acres of red wheat, a light 
crop, very ripe, in fact already " goose-necked," with a rather 
strong straw of about 3^ feet length, generally upstanding, but in 
places somewhat storm-broken — a clean crop on a gravelly soil 
— and both ground and crop dry. Each machine had a pre- 
liminary run, and was then set to cut a half-acre plot, no 
exhibitor's attendant being permitted to follow after the first 
round. The order of trial was as follows : — 
No. 1. — Messrs. II. Hornsby and Son's Six-armed Machine (No. 469 Cata- 
logue number), like the other machines entered by that firm in this Class, is 
denominated a " spring-balance " reaper ; the principle of construction being 
that the main wheel, instead of being hung upon the main frame or upon 
a bracket held rigidly by adjustments on the frame, is hung upon a bracket 
which is free to rise and fall, this bracket being hinged to the frame at one end, 
and at the other end supported by a rod which compresses a spiral spring. The 
bracket is so shaped as to form in effect a bell-crank lever, the horizontal long 
arm carrying the stud-axle of the main wheel, while the vertical shorter arm is 
held by the horizontal rod from the spring. In the engraving (Fig. 2) giving 
a view of one of the spring-balance reapers, the position of the spring is shown. 
The principal weight of the machine is, in effect, carried by this spiral spring, 
so that a very considerable amount of jolting and straining is avoided. The 
saving of the machine from shocks and severe strains renders safe and sufficient 
a lighter frame, and risk of fracture is reduced. At the same time, the more 
steady, quiet, and easy travelling of the machine tends to diminish the draught. 
The driver's seat is to some extent supported, and certainly preserved from vio- 
lent jolting, by the action of the spring. A quickly acting screw-motion with 
gauge, by lengthening or shortening the spring-rod, alters the average position 
