The Royal Agricultural Society of England. 869 = 603 
Implernent Department. — The subordinate position of this Exhibition of 
lartment in the earlier Shows of the Society has been briefly Iraplements. 
ntioned, and contrasted with its present importance, which 
tnands that two-thirds of the total area of the Showyard should 
\ allotted to it. There is no department of the Society's ope- 
rions which in past years gave rise to so much discussion as 
t action of the Council in their endeavour to encourage the 
i ention and manufacture of improved agricultural machinery ; 
a 1 it may be useful to give a brief outline of the history of the 
s )ject. 
\t the present day it is almost impossible to realise the 
f mitive condition of this now enormous industry at the time 
cthe earlier meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society, before 
i had been systematically stimulated by the trials which were 
I de in connection with the annual Country Meetings ; but the 
flowing extract from the late Sir H. S. Meysey Thompson's 
per "On the Royal Agricultural Society and the Progress of 
i riculture " will carry more weight than the same facts ex- 
j!ssed in any other words: — * 
The subordinate position occupied by agricultural machineiy at the time Subordinate 
ohese [tlie two first] Meetings is sufficiently evident; but a striking corro- position 
bation of the fact is to be gained in the first Essay read before the Society in 1839. 
(irch 13th, 1839), by that accomplished writer, the late Mr. Pusey. The 
t'3 of the paper was ' On the present State of the Science of Agriculture in 
I ;land,' and no one was more capable than Mr. Pusey of justly estimating the 
r live importance (according to the ideas of the day) of the numerous subjects 
d;ussed in that valuable and exhatistive article.f It is curious to find that 
t only implements there aHuded to were the plough and the harrow, the 
t lip-slicer and tlie threshing-machine, witli the exception of the following 
f igraph on the drill, which sounds so strange in the ears of a farmer of the 
f sent day that it seems barely credible that it should have been penned by 
0 so thoroughly conversant with his subject at so late a date as 1839. 
* le use of another instrument, the drill-machine, a more complicated owe, 
1 vhicJi the seed is laid in regular rows, haslately become frequent in Southern 
a i-ell as in Northern England ; though it has established itself so slowly, that 
f a long time travelling machines of this kind have made yearly journeys 
/ n Suffolk as far as Oxfordshire, for tlie use of those distant farmers by 
I m their services are required.' Volumes of proof of the complete revolu- 
I I which has taken place in farming implements since 1839 would not be 
tre convincing than the simple announcement that IMr. Pusey, in his 
i ugural address to the Members of the Uoyal Agricultural Society, thought 
i' ecessary to inform them that the drill was a machine bj^ which the seed was 
III in regular rows ; or than the surprising fact which he records, that Suflblk 
Is have actually perambulated the half of Englatjd since the accession, not 
luod Queen Bess, but of her gracious Majesty , Queen Victoria!" 
At the first meeting of the Society, in 1839, prizes for agri- Competition 
' Itural implements in the form of money and medals were I'^izes. 
' .lournal of the Eoyal Agricultural Society of England,' vol. xxv., pp. 9, 10. 
Ibid. vol. i., p. 1. 
