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VII. — Extract of a Letter from Governor Grey, dated Adelaide, 
South Australia, December 18, 1843. 
The Colonj' continues to prosper, and the only event which has created 
any sensation is the complete success which has attended the operations 
of a newly-invented reaping-machine, invented in the colony. This 
machine reaps, thrashes, and winnows all at the same time, and this at 
the rate of nearly an acre an hour, the machine requiring to be attended 
by two men, and to he pushed by two horses. The corn is at once taken 
from the machine (which is stopped for the purpose when it is filled), 
and put into bags for exportation. The total sum charged for this 
operation is 10?. per acre; the sowing of corn, time, and labour, and 
consequently of expense, is very great. The inventor of the machine 
anticipates that, next year, the whole of these operations will cost much 
less than 10?. per acre. I have seen this machine at work, and was 
quite satisfied as to its success. 
You will say, but we shall soon make such a machine in England, 
when the principle is known. It is, however, based upon a peculiarity 
in this climate, and could, I think, only succeed in a similar very dry 
climate. 
I must now give you a description of this invention. It is something 
like a cart, pushed forward by two horses instead of being drawn. In 
front of the machine is a very large steel comb, which is pushed forward 
and seizes the straw of the wheat as an ordinary comb seizes hair. As 
the machine is moved forward, the straws are by the motion drawn through 
the comb, until the head, or the part containing the grain, is caught in 
the comb, and dragged up towards the mouth of the machine. 
From the peculiar dryness of this climate, the wheat (wliat is termed) 
sheds very easily, that is, the corn or grain falls very readily out of the 
husk ; indeed so much so, that wheat cannot be reaped here in the usual 
manner without considerable loss from the shedding. As soon, there- 
fore, as the head of the wheat is caught in the comb, the grain is, as it 
were, combed out, and falls down the comb to the mouth of the machine. 
Tiiat part of the head of the wheat which does not get through the comb 
(which is too fine to admit it until the grain has fallen out) is ultimately 
dragged up to the mouth of the machine, where it is knocked off by an 
apparatus like that of the ordinary thrashing-machine, and the wheat is 
then thrashed in the same manner as in other thrashing-machines ; 
whilst the raj)id advance of the machine creates a strong draft, by the 
aid of which the corn is winnowed. The straw is left standing. So 
much of it as is required for manure, «S;c. is mown, and the remainder is 
burnt. 
VIII. — On the Italian Ryegrass (Folium Trcfolium). From 
Joshua Rodwell. 
My Lord President and Gentlemen, — My object in again venturing 
to address you upon the subject of the Italian rye-grass, is for the pur- 
pose of stating to you the result of my further experience and observa- 
