380 Report on the Exhibition of Implements 
Another way in which exhibitions of implements lead to their 
improvement, is by keeping up that spirited competition between 
the principal implement-makers, which acts as a powerful sti- 
mulus to ingenuity and invention. 
It is now very generally the custom for purchasers of imple- 
ments to make their selection in the show-yard of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, or, if unable to be present, to wait for the 
reports of the judges before giving their orders.* It therefore be- 
comes important for those who wish to take the lead in this branch 
of manufacture, to obtain a prominent position at these meetings, 
and no one who has watched, for the last few years, the keen 
competition between the leading implement-makers, can doubt its 
leading to good results. In fact, the great excellence observable 
in some departments (as, for instance, drills and tile-making ma- 
chines) is doubtless due, in no small degree, to the anxiety felt 
to bring out each succeeding season some marked improvement, 
which shall enable the inventor to go ahead of his competitors, 
and prevent the next great race from ending, as it has sometimes 
threatened to do, in a dead heat. 
The York Meeting was as satisfactory in the number of im- 
provements brought forward as in other respects — one or two of 
which deserve especial mention on account of their very simple 
mode of removing a difficulty which very elaborate contrivances 
had hitherto failed to surmount. One of these is the invention of 
Messrs. Hensman of Woburn. It has always been difficult to 
make a drill do its work well on hilly ground. Several con- 
trivances have been introduced for this purpose, such as altering 
by a screw the inclination of the manure or seed-boxes, or using 
a slide which partly closes the opening through which the corn 
passes from the hopper ; but the effect of these and other devices 
was entirely dependent on the judgment with which they were 
applied by the drill-man, and it was clearly impossible for him to 
estimate by the eye, with any accuracy, the steepness of a slope 
over which he was passing, or to adjust his drill to an inclination 
which, on undulating land, altered at almost every step; so that 
all these contrivances were but mitigations of an acknowledged 
defect. Messrs. Hensman have the merit of introducing the very 
simple but perfectly eff"ective method of letting the drill adjust 
itself. This is effected by suspending the hopper in such a way 
that its own weight always keeps it perpendicular, and thus, on 
the steepest hill-side, the delivery of the seed goes on at precisely 
the same rate as on a dead level, without its being necessary to 
make any alteration whatever in the adjustment of the drill. 
* One of the exhibitors at York stated that he received during the week 
sixty orders for one of his prize implements. 
