Report on Implements at Preston. 687 
and 104 at Preston. Although the Judges shared with the 
studious visitor the advantage of having fewer peremptory calls 
on their attention, they found this benefit fully balanced by 
the extra work of considering the question of novelty in many 
an implement that they might otherwise have passed by more 
rapidly as not eligible for a medal. 
Of these 104 entries, they reported to the Stewards that 13 
ought not to have been designated New Implements, and that 
10 others failed to put in an appearance. It is usually difficult 
to combine satisfactorily the duties of judging the Miscellaneous 
Implements with that of awarding prizes in special competitions; 
had there been no failure for want of entries in the competition 
for Harness, the Judges would have had great difficulty in 
getting through the work allotted to them. As a matter of 
detail, they suggest that it would be a convenience for other 
Judges if a list of " New Implements " were prepared of a size 
suitable for the commencement of a note book. 
The new regulation as to the entry of New Implements has 
had the effect of making the Catalogue apparently a gauge of 
the progress of invention as applied to farm implements. It 
must not, however, be assumed to be an accurate gauge, for the 
Showyard contained many valuable and important improvements 
in well-known implements not made conspicuous in the Cata- 
logue, and a few that were altogether new, though not so 
designated in the entry. On the other hand, when we consider 
the enormous increase in the number of patents that have been 
taken out in other departments of industry under the greatly 
increased facilities of the New Patent Act, it is clear that the 
long-continued agricultural depression has greatly hindered the 
progress we might otherwise have anticipated. An improve- 
ment in the demand must naturally precede an improvement 
in production ; but a dull trade was the general report at 
Preston among the exhibitors, except those who dealt in dairy 
appliances, and a few of those who exhibited silos and silage 
machinery. 
It is said of the Duke of Wellington, that amid all the 
anxieties of the Peninsular Campaign he found time to con- 
centrate his thoughts upon such an apparently minor detail as 
the best shape and make of soldiers' boots. In a similar spirit 
the Council of our Society has, in a time of great agricultural 
anxiety, by offering prizes for harness, whippletrees, and 
packages for butter, directed attention to some of those smaller 
matters that will only be deemed unworthy of such notice by 
those who fail to realise how much attention to detail lies at 
the root of success ; even genius itself has been defined as the 
art of taking infinite pains to arrive at perfection. 
