Report on the Trials of Implements at Reading. 66 7 
not be dispensed with. At the dinner hour they came up, headed 
by a man who, before beginning his work, had inquired very 
particularly what he was to be paid. He had been told that he 
would have 35. a day, with an allowance of beer according to 
the number of hours' work he made. Demanding for himself 
and his fellows higher wages, he alleged as the ground of his 
dissatisfaction the rumour that other men, belonging to the 
regular staff of the Sewage Farm, were getting more money. 
He was " as good a man as e'er a one o' they." The malcontents 
were immensely surprised, but not relieved, when they were told 
that they would be at liberty at the end of the day to go to a 
better job if they could find one. " Then gie us our money and 
we'll go." " No ; if you go now you will only be paid up to 
last night. You will get nothing for the broken day." When 
the Judges returned to the field, after a short absence, they found 
that there had been a quarrel and a free fight, and the ringleader 
had left the field adorned with a couple of black eyes, which one 
of his mates had given him, and he was not seen on the ground 
again. 
Whether it is the custom of the farmers of the neighbourhood 
to supplement the ordinary wages of the labourers by con- 
siderable extra allowances for all sorts of work which require 
any degree of skill, or whether it arose simply from the desire 
to make hay while the sun of the Royal Agricultural Society 
shone upon the Reading district, certain it is that frequent 
demands were made by the men employed for additional pay. 
These demands generally took the form of requests for " a 
shillin' extry " for this or that work aa " the usual thing." The 
stacker thought " there was no harm in arxing a shillin' a 
stack for stacking." A man who had driven a mowing-machine 
said he expected a shillin' an acre " in addition to his wages 
of three shillings a day, and he tried to persuade the Judges 
that it didn't come to much money then, as a man could not 
mow more than 3 acres a day with one pair of horses. When 
a bargain had been concluded with the thatcher, he put in, as 
if it were a matter of course, a claim to " a shillin' a rick for 
beer," which he said was " a reg'lar thing." 
On Monday, the 3rd of July, the Judges, having inspected 
the machines in the Showyard, proceeded to the trial field and 
inspected the crop of grass before any was mown. In the course 
of the afternoon and the following morning plots were assigned 
to the different competitors. In allotting these plots the 
Stewards and Judges took first those who were first ready. 
Mr. Coultas, Mr. Champion, and Mr. Phillips for this reason 
had the first four plots. In determining the size of the different 
plots, regard was had to the heaviness of the crop, and as far 
as possible it was sought to give each man about the same 
