The Royal Agricultural Society of England, 873 = 607 
nA any new implement or important improvement exhibited 
it any Show may be put to trial and receive an appropriate 
iward if found worthy of the approval of the Society's 
fudges.* 
The detailed results of the Society's efforts to encourage the Steam-culti- 
inprovement of agricultural machinery would require a volume ^'it'OH- 
or their description, and cannot be even glanced at in this 
)rief Memoir. It may, however, be claimed for the Society 
hat, without pursuing any chimerical views of over-sanguine 
nventors, it has appreciated and steadily fostered the germ of 
ny real improvement in the mechanical appliances of the farm. 
The encouragement of steam-cultivation may be cited as an illus- 
ration of the manner in which such questions have been dealt 
vith by the Society. At the Lincoln Meeting in 1854 Mr. Fowler 
eceived a Silver Medal for a " Steam Draining Apparatus," 
ind at the close of their report on its work when under trial, 
he Judges remarked, " Surely this power can be applied to 
nore general purposes. We earnestly commend this idea to our Its origin 
•ngineers and mechanists." In the following year the Society, '"^ 
icting upon this hint, offered a prize of 200/., without effect ; 
)ut in 1856 two competitors appeared at the Chelmsford 
Vieeting to contest the prize, then increased to 500/., " for the 
>team-cultivator that shall in the most efficient manner turn 
)ver the soil,t and be an economical substitute for the plough or 
he spade." Neither of the competitors fulfilled the conditions 
ncluded in the terms of the prize ; the offer of which was 
enewed the next year at the Salisbury Meeting, and again the 
ear after at Chester. At the latter meeiing the prize of 500/. 
vas awarded to Mr. Fowler, and a Gold Medal to Messrs. J. and F. 
ioward. At Warwick in 1859, Worcester in 1863, Leicester 
n 1868, and lastly at Wolverhampton in 1871, the relative 
nerits of different systems of steam-cultivating machinery were 
)ut to the test, and on each successive occasion in a more exhaus- 
ive manner. In 1866 the Society appointed three Committees 
* There are ten Silver Medals, the award of which the Judges appointed by 
he Council have the power of recommending in cases of sufficient merit in New 
Implements. 
t Mr. Smith, of "Woolston, has always argued against this condition of tlie 
Society's prize for a steam-cultivator, and has maintained ihat for effective culti- 
'ation by steam it was not necessary that the soil should be inverted. In this 
espect he was very much in advance of his time, and at present a great number 
>f practical agriculturists are of opinion that the best use of steam power, espe- 
■ially as a preparation for the root-crop, is to thorouglily break up and pulverise 
-he subsoil without bringing it to the surface. At the same time, it must be 
ibsei vcd that much less power is required to break up the soil than to turn it 
iver with a plough, and that Mr. Smith's steam-tackle, which competed at 
!^helmsford, was not designed to comply with the condition wliich was embodied 
n the Society's offer of their Piize, and by which their Judges were bound. 
