Report on the Trials of Implements at Reading. 
645 
ndverse times many landlords have given their tenants, who had 
until recently been strictly prohibited from selling any hay, the 
privilege of marketing at least a portion of their crop. In such 
cases the value of the hay to the farmer, if it be well got, is 
much increased, and his risk and loss from bad weather are 
increased in the same ratio. Notwithstanding the largely in- 
creased sale of hay by farmers, the price of good hay has been 
high, and the demand for it seems to increase every year. 
Packing- and trussing-machines, by reducing the bulk and ren- 
dering the material more portable, extend the area from which 
supplies can be drawn ; and by their means many farmers who 
were formerly excluded are brought within reach of a market. 
It may then be said with certainty that on the average the 
British farmer has now, as compared with ten or fifteen years 
ago, a larger part of his farm in grass, and a larger portion of 
that grass mown for hay ; that he is more at liberty, and avails 
himself of that liberty, to sell his hay ; and that if he can secure 
it in good condition, he makes a bigger price of it than he ever 
<lid before. 
The very cause which has made the farmer more depen- 
<lent upon the hay-crop than formerly, namely, the wet seasons, 
has at the same time seriously interfered with his success in 
this branch of agriculture. In proportion to its value, hay is 
perhaps more susceptible of injury by a short spell of rainy 
weather than corn is ; and great as are the losses caused by 
continuous wet weather at harvest time, they are perhaps in a 
series of years equalled by those done to the hay-crop by the 
proverbially fickle climate of this island. Any invention or 
discovery which would make the hay and corn growers inde- 
pendent of the weather, at the season of in-gathering, would be 
of incalculable benefit to the Agriculturists of the country, and 
not only to them, but to the whole community. 
At this juncture it has been asserted, and it is no doubt be- 
ieved by some enthusiasts, that the means of successfully com- 
bating the adverse influences of our climate have been discovered. 
Mr. Gibbs, of Gillwell Park, Essex, asks plaintively, " Why 
will you waste 6 million pounds a year, when the proved 
means of saving this amount are offered you ? " And an Agri- 
cultural Critic, " Agricola," writing in ' The Field ' newspaper 
some " Practical Notes on the Neilson System of Harvesting," 
which have since been published as a pamphlet,* asserts that 
" the discovery has been made that hay and corn may be har- 
vested in continuous rainy weather as perfectly as when the skies 
re clear and the sun shines brightly." 
* 'Harvesting Crops independently of Weather.' By Agricola. London, 
882. 
