700 Report on the Trials of Implements at Readivg. 
some of them were not more than 18 inches high, while some 
were about 36 inches from the ground. 
Messrs. Sutton and Sons very kindly gave the use of a large 
granary, in which the barley could be spread out thinly, and 
dried and sweetened ; and they undertook to put the corn 
through one of their finishing dressing-machines. They were 
also good enough to undertake to test the vitality of the grain ; 
and during the threshing of the stacks, samples were frequently 
taken from the corn as it ran down from the machine, and these 
were placed in numbered sample-bags, so that each one could be 
identified with the stack from which it came. These samples 
were delivered to Messrs. Sutton and Sons, and subsequently 
Mr. Carruthers was at his request furnished with a portion of 
each sample. The results of the experiments by Messrs. Sutton 
are given in Table XXI., at the end of this Report. Mr. 
Carruthers has not yet completed his experiments. 
The trials of the fans upon corn must be considered as having 
been a complete and disastrous failure. It will be easily con- 
ceived that if the Judges had found nothing in the trials upon 
hay to warrant them in awarding Mr. Sutton's prize, the trials 
upon corn served only to confirm and strengthen them in the 
opinions which they had previously formed. The duty of the 
Judges would have been easier and more pleasant if they could, 
while declining to give the prize, have given a few words of 
encouragement to the exhibitors, and intimated that the prin- 
ciples upon which they acted were sound, and that with some 
modification in detail there was a fair jirospect of success in the 
future ; but any such smooth words would misrepresent the 
opinions which they entertain. Bad and fickle as is this 
climate, they would far rather take the chances of weather than 
trust to any of the expedients which have been brought under 
their notice. 
There is a saying current among old-fashioned farmers with 
regard to corn and hay, " Better to spoil in the field than in the 
stack." Like most sayings of the kind, it may be read in 
different ways. One man will take it as an encouragement to a 
careless waiting upon Providence, while another will despise it 
as but an expression of old-world distaste for energy and 
promptitude. The prudent man will, however, accept it as the 
testimony of accumulated experience to the fact that more 
injury is done in hay and corn harvest by overhaste than by 
judicious biding of one's time. The husbandman, waiting 
with long patience for the fruit of the earth, is no mere figure 
of speech. Success comes to the man who knows how to wait 
and when to work. It does not seem very probable that in 
