Report on the Trials of Implements at Oxford. 443 
deceive tlie public as to the real merits of tlie make. That it 
has not been done lately, has been due, in a great measure, to 
the adoption of certain restrictions, and we think that they should 
be maintained. 
The following Report on Steam Engines and Horse Gears has 
been furnished by the Judges : — 
Section I. — Steam Engines. 
These were divided into two classes : — 
Class I. Fixed Steam Engines of Four-Horse Power witli Boiler combined. 
Class II. Fixed Steam Engines of above Four-Horse Power and not exceed- 
ing Ten-Horse Power, to be worked by an independent Boiler. 
The primaiy consideration in the purchase of a steam-engine in former days 
was, too commonly, "What will be its first cost?" But now the users of 
engines have grown wiser, and they endeavour to find out, not so much what 
will be its first cost, as what will be the daily expense in fuel, and what the 
annual expenditure in repairs, for keeping the engine at work. This Society 
has, therefore, as the great object in its trials of engines, to ascertain first — Is 
the engine, if with a boiler, safe ? Is it well proportioned, and is it well made, 
so as to be likely to last with few repairs ? And, if it have all these good 
qualities, what are its capabilities of giving out power compared with the fuel 
consumed in developing that power ? And, last of all — instead of first of all — 
What is the price the purchaser must pay for this engine ? 
The last trial of steam engines took place three years since at the Bury 
Show (1867). On that occasion, as on former occasions, the engines tried were 
divided into the two great classes of Portable and Fixed ; the Fixed being then, 
as now in the case of Class 2, worked from an independent boiler. At that 
show, also, the Society issued regulations by which 9 circular inches of area 
were required in each double-cylinder engine, and 10 inches in each single- 
cylinder engine, to represent a horse power ; and, further, each engine having 
its own boiler was to be tried twice, once at a duty equal to its nominal 
power, and at 50 lbs. pressure per square inch, and once at one-and-a-half 
times that duty, and at 80 lbs. pressure per square inch. 
A reference to the regulations in respect of steam engines issued for this 
Oxford meeting will show that the Royal Agricultural Society of England 
this year departed from its practice at the Bury Show, by not ofiering any prize 
for that important class of engines used in agriculture — the Portable * — and 
by dividing the fixed steam engines into two classes, one of them being reserved 
for those of 4 horse-power, the other for those above 4 and not above 10 horse- 
power. 
At this Oxford Show the Exhibitor was also left at perfect liberty to give any 
number of circular inches he pleased to represent a horse power, so long as the 
cylinder of the 4 horse-jaower engines were not above Ik inches diameter (13'14 
circular inches per horse-power), nor the cylinders of the 10 horse-power above 
II5 inches diameter (13'22 circular inches per horse-power). No restriction 
whatever was placed on the Exhibitor as to the nature or (except the above 
limitation) as to the proj^wrtions of his engines, nor in respect of tlie boiler was 
the rule of the Bury Show as to the size of tubes and amount of water space 
repeated. 
Like most other things, the leaving this latitude as to dimensions to the engine 
builders, as compared with the fixed rules for the proportions of the engines for 
* These -vrill come into competition in 1872. 
VOL. VI. — S. S. 2 H 
