Report on the Trials of Implements at Taunton. 671 
Special Prizes. — Class B. 
The following- were the prizes offered in this class : — 
For the best combined Guard and Feeder to the Dram £ 
of a Threshing-Machine 20 
For the second best 10 
The same three gentlemen officiated as in Class A. It will 
be seen that price was not considered by the Society of so 
much importance in this class as in the previous one. The 
following Table of points was prepared for this class : — 
1. Mechanical construction and workmanship, with soundness 
and quaUty of materials 200 
2. Efficiency as a feeder, simplicity and ease of management 300 
3. Capabilities of feeder to take in all kinds of crops . . . . 150 
4. EfBciencj' as a guard, without interfering with the quantity 
and quality of work done 300 
5. Price 50 
1000 
The object in view with the Judges appears to have been, 
that a self-feeder should be a labour-saving machine, and dis- 
place, at any rate, one man ; and they had hoped that the opera- 
tion of feeding would have been more regularly and efficiently 
performed. They did not, however, consider any of the appliances 
so efficient as an expert man-feeder. 
The liability to derangement of every additional part to an 
already complicated machine like a threshing-machine is calcu- 
lated to cause loss of time ; and the Judges did not view them 
with any great amount of favour. 
However, as will be seen by the annexed Table (VII.), which 
contains a summary of the results of the Trials, the Judges 
■considered No. 3481, by Clayton and Shuttleworth, price 20/., 
far superior to any of the others, and awarded it the First Prize. 
Messrs. Clayton and Shuttleworth'' s Combined Guard and Feeder, No. 
34:81. — This apparatus works on a similar principle to the straw-shaker of a 
threshing-maclune. A series of five vibrating boards, b (Fig. 40), armed with 
ratchet-teeth, shown by 1 and 5, are worked by a five-throw crank, h, placed 
anderneath, and would feed the corn into the drum-mouth as fast as it was 
thrown on to these boards, were it not for a set of seven vibrating teeth, c (Figs. 
40 and 41), which open out the sheaves, and only permit as much to pass as is 
allowed by the adjustment of the teeth on the shaft l (Figs. 40 and 41), or of 
the shaft itself in its bearings j, which are capable uf being moved up or down 
on the upright frame-post. The shaft h receives its motion from a crank-pin 
iu a fly-wheel on the far side of the feeder crank-shaft n, not shown in the 
drawing. The teeth c make 180 double strokes per minute. The guard a is 
adjustable on the pivot m ; its object partly is to keep the corn down where 
the points of the teeth c can operate with the best effect, e is a swinging 
board for guiding the corn down towards the drum-mouth after it leaves the 
feeders. The fixed board F answers the same purpose; both e and f are 
adjustable in position, as shown in Fig. 40. The board f also serves as a feed- 
