690 Report on the Trials of Implements at Reading. 
this, nettles and other weeds were the chief constituents. A 
small heap of about three tons of this rubbish having been 
gathered together, Mr. Neilson's fan was attached, and worked 
once or twice with the view of keeping the stack from destroying 
itself; but nothing like a trial of the fan was possible, and the 
circumstance of its having been brought into the field need 
never have been noticed if it had not been that some of the 
newspaper correspondents predicted great results, and one of the 
exhibitors has, in a published letter, compared the price which 
his stack made with that realised for the stack in question, 
which is coupled very unfairly with Mr. Neilson's name. 
Having completed the history of the haystacks from the 
mowing of the grass to the trussing up of the hay, it may be 
convenient to review briefly the results which were arrived at. 
Fans were applied to 11 stacks, and in only two of these stacks, 
viz. Nos. 13 and 15 (Mr. Phillips, exhibitor), was there any 
approach to success. Coultas's big fan attempting to do all the 
work at a blow, and Bamlett's little one, worked almost con- 
tinuously, and Lister's, of medium capacity, all produced very 
similar results, mouldy and inferior hay,* In all the five stacks 
operated upon by these exhibitors there can be little doubt 
that the fixed cage had a bad effect ; and this was particularly 
evident in Bamlett's stack. No. 9, and Lister's, No. 11. 
Mr. Greening's hand-power fan never had anything to do, and 
it would have been better if it had remained quiet ; but this 
implement might have been weeded out ; a /«anfZ-power machine, 
which requires three men to keep it at work, is out of the field ; 
the complicated machinery of this implement would easily get 
out of order, and it would require a skilled mechanic to put it 
right again. This exhibitor also failed egregiously in his 
management of the stack to which his power-fan was attached. 
There remain the two stacks upon which Mr. Phillips operated. 
The hay which was put into these stacks wanted only a few 
hours' more exposure to sun or wind to make its condition such 
that it might have been stacked with safety. If the weather 
had been threatening, it might have been put into cocks until 
a favourable opportunity occurred for stacking it. Granted 
that the method of this exhibitor was the best (and the removal 
of the cages was a very important feature in his mode of treat- 
ment of the stack), and that his hay was the best made, the 
success was not sufficiently great to induce any one to hurry 
their hay into the stack in reliance on the power of the fan to 
* The mimber of liours of fan working by these exhibitors was as follows : 
Coultas's No. 1, .3} hours; Ditto No. 2, IJ hour; Bamlett No. 9, 4G hours; 
Ditto No. 16, 48 hours; Lister No. 11, G6 hours. 
