672 
Report on the Trials of 
No elaboration of these figures is required to show that there 
is, roughly speaking, a saving of half the cost in carriage, as 
between compressed and loose hay or straw ; while, as will 
presently appear, the cost of baling, even with the rudest press, 
is vastly less than the saving in question. Under these cir- 
cumstances it is not a matter for surprise that the pressing of 
hay and straw has, somewhat suddenly, assumed the character 
of an important and profitable industry, or that certain houses 
employed in this business are working as many as twenty or 
thirty presses apiece and making good profits. 
That " demand creates supply is a truism, indeed, but there 
is probably no example of supply following more rapidly upon 
demand than in the agricultural implement business, where no 
new want remains long unexploited, thanks, in a great measure, 
to the influence of the Society's Annual Show, where makers are 
brought into close touch both with users and with one another. 
However this may be, the Society's offer of prizes to a class of 
implements, not indeed new, but newly in use on British farms, 
produced no less than forty-three entries of hay- and straw- 
presses, of which number thirty-two machines (see Table II. on 
page 573) came to trial in one or other of the four following 
classes : — 
Prizes and Conditions of Trial of Hay- and Straw -Presses. 
Class 1 . — For a hay- and straw-press worked by steam power — 
First Prize £.30 
Second Prize 20 
Class 2. — For a hay- and straw-press worked by horse power — 
First Prize . . . . . . .20 
Second Prize 10 
Class 3. — For a hay- and straw-press worlced by hand pow.er — 
First Prize 20 
Second Prize 10 
Class 4. — For a press for old hay worked by hand power . 20 
Subjoined are the conditions under which the presses were 
tried : — 
1. Notice of the place and date of the trials will be posted to every com- 
petitor as soon as they .are fixed. 
2. Every competitor must himself provide for the delivery of his machines 
on the trial ground, and for the removal of the same after the trials. 
3. Horses will be provided by the Society to work machines durinar the 
trials, but compc^titors who desire it may provide their own horses. These 
will be charged at a uniform rate against the machines. Except in the case 
of combined steam engines and presses, the Society will provide a portable 
engine for driving Class 1. The engine will be charged at a uniform rate 
against the presses. [ Cotitinued on p. 674. 
