440 Report on the Trials of Implements at Cardiff'. 
concave fixed to the cast-iron standards, the upper one being furnished with 
sharp knives and the lower one with blunt projections. A small flywheel is 
fixed on the right extremity of the shaft of each of these drums. Each drum 
is set close, so that the projections on the drum surface work between those on 
the concave, the general effect reminding one of a huge sausage-machine. 
The straw falling from the shakers is seized and whirled through these drums 
with great velocity, and is sent flying out in a cataract that falls to the ground 
6 feet away from the open drum-case, while the dust and smaller fragments 
float off in the air like spray from a waterfall, but without possessing the 
refreshing property that liquid spray might have for those whose bronchial 
tubes have already had a sufficiency of similar dust. It will be seen from 
column 21, Table IV., that the power required for this double operation wa3 
more than double that required for the threshing alone. 
Looking at the results of this first trial, we find the firm of 
Clayton and Shuttleworth taking the same position as in the first 
heat of the previous race. With a possible score of 430, they 
take the first place with 411 points to their credit. Ransomes^ 
Sims, and Head, with their No. 4661 machine, stand a very good 
second with 404 points. Next, but at a wider interval, comes 
No. 4981, Nalder and Nalder, with 387 points. 
Seven machines having been selected for a second run, were 
tried with 1 ton each of sheaf corn on Thursday. This fourth 
day of the trial will not quickly be forgotten; a steady and conti- 
nuous rain made the threshing a tough job for the machines and 
greatly thinned the attendance of spectators. The threshing, though 
clean, was done at a great expense of power, and we may learn 
from columns 34 and 35 in Table V. that threshing in wet weather 
cannot be done without injury to the grain and the straw. In order 
to ascertain how much of the corn left in the straw and caving was 
the result of inefficient threshing and how much was due to in- 
efficient shaking, three men with forks were employed to re-shake 
the straw by hand before it was taken away to be re-threshed ; 
the quantity of corn thus obtained is recorded in column 23. 
This test, however, was hardly satisfactory, and was not repeated 
in other trials, as the labourers seemed to think it " mucii 
ado about nothing," and it was difficult to secure thorough 
shaking towards the end of the trial. The corn obtained by the 
re-threshing in this trial was subsequently dressed by hand power, 
and the best and seconds corn are entered in columns 24 and 25. 
It must not, however, be supposed that the "best" of this corn was- 
all plump and good grain, very little of it in fact was worthy of 
being classed as the "head corn," so that we may say, while most 
of the machines in this trial left less than one half per cent, of 
the grain unextracted, that half per cent, was chiefly composed of 
lean and shrivelled grains. In the lower part of columns 11, 12, 
and 13, it will be observed that we have not repeated the results 
obtained in running the machines empty, but have filled up the 
space with descriptions of the shakers and caving riddles. The 
