744 
Report on Implements at Preston. 
A new system of portable railway, suitable for farm and other 
use, was exhibited by Messrs. J. and F. Howard. The sleepers 
are of steel plate, flanged and corrugated. The chairs for the 
Fig. 35. — Illustrations of Messrs. J. and F. Howard's Portable Bailway. 
rails are formed in the corrugation of the sleeper, and the full 
strength of the corrugation being preserved at the part exposed 
to the tread of the draught animal, the exact gauge of the rail- 
way is well secured. No bolts or rivets are required, the only 
fastening being a metal key, slightly grooved on the one side to 
fit into the cheeks of the chair when the key is driven home. 
At the junction of the rails double sleepers are used, as shown 
in Fig. 35, and no fish plates are required. It seems hardly possible 
to attain greater lightness or simplicity of parts, and consequent 
facility for laying and removing a railway, than in this system. 
It will probably have a wide use wherever the surface of the 
ground is sound enough for sleepers of this description. 
This firm have improved upon the Straw Trussing Machine 
for working in combination with a threshing-machine that 
obtained a silver medal in 1883 at York^ The trusser is now 
fixed upon the rear of the frame of the threshing-machine, and 
requires no independent travelling wheels. The packing and 
binding mechanism is now so close to the shakers that the 
canvas aprons are no longer needed to conduct the straw to the 
collectors. In this form the trusser costs 351. ; as an inde- 
pendent implement it costs 45Z. 
No. 4545, Mr. H. R. Marsden^s Stone-breaker, with Blake- 
Marsden's 1884 patent lever hand-hammer motion. This re- 
sembles the original Blake Stone-breaker in its broad outline, 
but is much improved in details. 
It is driven in the usual way by a pulley, Q, upon a crank, f, instead of 
an exceutric shaft. Upon this shaft a connectinj^-rod, g, is attached, and at 
the other lower end of the connecting-rod is si)indled one end of a solid 
crucible-steel lever, the other end of which is fulcrumed to tlie main frame. 
As the connecting-rod, o, lifts up and down, it actuates the lever, h, in sucli 
a manner that the toggles, J and k, give the necessary motion to the swing- 
ing jaw, D, for breaking or crusliing the material luider treatment. One of 
the great advantages of this machiue lies in the fact of there being a falsi) 
