688 
Report on Implements at Freston. 
The following prizes were offered : — 
Harness, Gears and Whippletrees. ^ 
Class 1. — Set of Harness and Gears for a pair of horses for ploughing 5 
Class 2. — Set of Harness and Gears for three horses for ploughing .. 5 
Class 3. — Set of Harness for carting .. . .. .. ..5 
Class 4. — Set of 2-horse Whippletrees .. .. .. ..2 
Glass 5. — Set of 3-horse Whippletrees .. .. .. ..2 
Class G. — Set of 4-horse Whippletrees .. .. .. .. 2 ■ 
Butter-Packages. 
Class 7. — Package" suitable to convey Salt Butter to market .. 5 
Class 8. — Package suitable to convev Fresh Butter by Parcels Post 
or Rail " 5 
Silver Medals for Kew Inventions. 
There are ten Silver Medals, the award of which the Judges appointed by 
ibe Council have the power of recommending in cases of sufficient merit. 
These Medals cannot in any case be awarded to any implement, unless the 
]irinciple of the implement, or of the improvement in it, be entirely new. 
It was a disappointment and a surprise that out of the 
thousands of harness-makers in England, there was not one who 
attempted to win the first prize ever offered for harness bj the 
Royal Agricultural Society. On other occasions the stimulus 
of a prize, even for an entirely new desideratum of agriculture, 
has seldom failed to produce competition, either at the first or 
second offer. There must be some special reason for failure this 
time. The fit of the collar is such an important point, that most 
farmers order their harness from a local maker ; and though 
occasionally the man who goes to a new neighbourhood orders 
the chief part of his harness at the old shop, and gets the collars 
only supplied in the neighbourhood, yet few makers lay them- 
selves out to supply farm-harness to customers at a distance. It 
may be that makers know so little of what others are doing in 
their own line, that each one has shrunk from incurring the ex- 
pense of competing, among the multitude that he expected, for a 
prize of small pecuniary value. Whatever may be the true 
reason, it cannot be that such a competition is not desirable. 
Great differences are found in the weight and make of farm- 
harness in different districts ; and as an instance of the want of 
definite knowledge of the subject, I may point to the curious 
fact, that while two leading agricultural authorities agree that 
farm-harness is often made unnecessarily and absurdly heavy, 
Air. Morton tells us, in his ' Cyclopaedia of Agriculture,' that 
Scotch harness is generally heavier tlian English ; while Mr. 
Stephens, in his ' Book of the Farm,' when describing the 
plough harness of the Lothians, states that it is little more than 
Jeatlier-weight in comparison with English harness. 
