274 licport on the Trials of Reaping Machines at Leamington? 
the endless-bands for delivering traverse across the 12-feet wide 
platform at the same speed, that is, at the same rate of feet per 
minute, as in a horse-power narrower machine ; and the knife 
also is driven at the same speed in proportion to advance as- 
in the horse machine. The knife being driven by the engine 
instead of from the travelling wheels which, in the case of a 
horse machine, will slip on the land and allow the knife to stop 
suddenly when jammed by a stone, it was necessary to provide 
a weak place somewhere as a kind of safety-valve against a 
severe accident ; and therefore the knife sections are lightly 
riveted. There is no arrangement for throwing the reaping 
machine in and out of gear. 
In the first trial upon the ripe upstanding wheat, the steam, 
reaper surprised onlookers by the easy and confident manner in 
which it entered the field with the machine heaved high over 
the gate-posts and hedges, advanced to the plot on the far-side 
of the field, and cut up and down courses, cutting clean and low 
a breadth averaging 11 feet and delivering a very good and 
well laid swathe. Measuring 30 feet in length, the combined 
engine and reaper turned round end for end in little more than 
this radius : — effecting this right-about movement by first steer- 
ing forwards into a position at right angles to the first direction, 
and then backing for another right angle. In practice the engine 
would begin by cutting three breadths at each end of the field 
to get a clearance for turning in. The time occupied in turning 
was ljto If minute, or 2^ minutes at intervals, when the driver 
purposely stopped for firing, nine turnings being accomplished 
in 16 minutes. With steam at lOOlbs. pressure, reduced in the 
latter part of the trial to 801bs., with an early cut-off, the pace 
in work was 100 yards advance in 1^ minute. This rate of 
performance, including the turnings, is about 2J acres per 
hour, or, say, 30 acres in a harvest day. 
Two men only are required ; and as the engine brings into 
the field in the morning a four-wheeled combined water-cart 
and coal-cart holding 700 gallons of water, which is enough for 
a day's consumption, and sufficient coal for a day's consump- 
tion, the steam reaper is entirely independent of horses. 
On Friday, August 18th, the steam reaper had a field-day 
on the farm of Mr. Garner, four miles from Leamington, on the 
Tachbrook Road. Here the engine had to contend with a heavy 
wheat crop on a hill-side, presenting inclines of about one in 
ten or twelve, and this with the ground wet from the drenching 
rain which both preceded the trial and proceeded with it. In 
fact, the soil became a thinnish layer of loose slippery mud upon 
a hard bottom not yet moistened by the downfall ; so that there 
was not adhesion enough to have enabled the wheel of a horse- 
