Report on Implements at Liverpool. 
103 
cultural balance is well maintained. What I mean is, there is 
not too much dependence or expense placed on the results of 
any single crop, the failure of which may seriously affect the 
balance for the year. As atready stated, the rents are high, 
about 3/. per acre, and rates are by no means low, the following 
being paid on a property- valuation of 77/., viz., tithe, 5/. ; 
lunacy rates, which are singularly high all over the island, 21. ; 
school rate, 2d. per /. ; road rate, od. per /. Labour is more 
expensive, and farm burdens are greater, in Lancashire, but, 
taken as a whole, we consider that the chances of agricul- 
tural success are greater on the mainland than in the Isle of 
Man. In our drive over the island we were struck with the 
numbers of people who seemed to go there for pleasure. A 
constant succession of carriages of every description were 
passing along the thoroughfares, giving quite a holiday aspect 
to ,the country. I am sorry to add that the results of their 
present crop do not differ from our own, the cereal crops showing 
a deficiency of nearly 50 per cent ; potatoes were nearly a total 
failure ; and the turnip crop a very poor one. I conclude this 
report with an expression of the pleasure that my colleagues and 
I enjoyed from our visit to " Elian vannin veg veen," Anglice, 
" dear little Isle of Man," and our thanks for all the information 
and kindness we received during our stay in the island. 
It would be ungrateful to leave finally the Farm-Prize Com- 
petition of 1877 without expressing the thanks of the Judges to 
Mr. Rigby, the Secretary of the Local Committee, who gave us 
most valuable information as to routes, and was in every respect 
most courteous and obliging. 
S. D. Shireiff. 
T. P. OUTHWAITE. 
J. D. Ogilvie. 
V. — Report on the Implements at the Royal Agricultural Society's 
Show at Liverpool ; and on the Trials of Sclf-hinding Reapers 
at Aigburth. By J. Hannam, of Pocklington, Yorkshire. 
Several circumstances combined to lighten the duty of the 
Official Reporter. The Judges awarded only three of the 
Society's Silver Medals out of the ten at their disposal ; and out 
of eight Self-binding Reapers entered for exhibition at Liver- 
pool only five were shown, and of these only three came to 
trial at Aigburth. These three machines were exhibited at the 
recent Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, and of two of them 
Mr. Coleman has given a detailed description in the last volume 
