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Report on the Implements 
XXVTI. — Report on the Implements Exhibited at Windsor. 
By Thos, H. Thursfield, F.S.I., Reporting Judge. 
Jiidgen. 
TnoMis Bell, Hedley Hall, Marley Hill, Whickham, R.S.O., Durham. 
Mason Cooke, The Lawn, Ely, (jambridgeshire. 
Thos. H. Thursfield, Barrow, Broseley, Shropshire. 
No part of the Jubilee Show of the Royal Agricultural Society, 
held under the presidency of Her ]\Iajesty the Queen at Windsor 
in 1889, more fully exemplifies the great progress and the 
wonderful development of agriculture during the fifty years' life 
of the Society, than does the Implement and Machinery De- 
partment. 
Fifty years ago, the typical farmer little heeded either science 
or steam ; he did not even think of electricity. The village 
blacksmith and wheelwright were his implement-makers ; from 
them he could obtain all he required in the way of machinery. 
He would have been greatly astonished if he had seen the im- 
plements necessary to the modern farmer, and the cost would 
have upset him entirely. He was content to go on, as his 
father had done before him, with the " old wooden plough," 
and he generally looked upon anything new with a jealous 
feeling of prejudice. As says the old song : — 
Aye, an old Wooden Plough, and they say, to be sure. 
As the wideawake Farmer man use 'em no more. 
They mun all be of iron, and wood there's no trade for, 
Why, what do the fools think as Ash Trees were made for ? 
Meanwhile he was, perhaps unknowingly, about to take part 
in far greater changes than he ever dreamt of — the changes 
brought about by the Royal Agricultural Society, linking to- 
gether " Practice with Science." He was entering upon the 
era of invention : steam was in its infancy — railways had not 
yet made the world grow smaller. 
The Agricultural Show of 1839 at Oxford was the turning- 
point. It brought ploughs and other implements together from 
all parts of the country. " It afforded a favourable opportunity 
of contrasting the implements of different parts of the country, 
and to many there was novelty even in those which had in dis- 
tant districts been in constant use." Comparative trials were 
originated, the fittest survived, and progress was made on all 
sides with rapid strides. Agriculture has always shown itself 
capable of combating (it may be, perhaps, but slowly) the diffi- 
culties now and again arising in its joath, by depending on the 
energy and skill of the farmer, who on his part has looked to 
