10 
Agricultural Progress ami 
Oxfordshire, for the use of those distant farmers by ivhom their 
^services are required." Volumes of proof of the complete revo- 
lution which has taken place in farming implements since 183!) 
would not be more convincing than the simple announcement 
that Mr. Pusey, in his inaugural address to the members of the 
Royal Agricultural Society, thought it necessary to inform them 
that the drill was a machine by which the seed tvas laid in regular 
rows ; or than the surprising fact which he records that Suffolk 
drills have actually perambulated the half of England since the 
accession, not of good Queen Bess, but of her Gracious Majesty 
Queen Victoria ! 
The insignificant position allotted to farming implements little 
more than twenty years ago having now been sufficiently shown, 
a few short extracts from the records of the Society will prove 
the extent of the advance which has subsequently taken place. 
At the Oxford meeting the portion of the catalogue devoted to 
implements contained the names of twenty exhibitors, and occupied 
less than one page octavo ! 
At Cambridge there were thirty-two exhibitors, and the descrip- 
tion of the implements occupied a page and a half of the cata- 
logue. Yet the Cambridge show of implements was in 1840 
considered a great success, and the report (which bore the signa- 
ture of three most competent judges and expressed the general 
opinion of those present], stated that " beyond controversy, such a 
selection of implements ivas never before collected in one showyard" 
The Society's last show was held at "Worcester, and there 
were assembled 282 exhibitors of implements, who showed 
5839 articles (excluding duplicates), and the catalogue describing 
them formed a thick octavo volume of 457 pages. There were 
135 steam-engines, 11 traction ditto, 12 steam-ploughs, 29 steam- 
cultivators, hi steam thrashing-machines, and 45 reaping and 
moioiny-machines. These articles have been selected as most 
illustrative of progress, and their bare enumeration would have 
been sufficient if the object of the writer had been simply to 
furnish some statistical proof of the recent development of agricul- 
tural mechanics in this country. Unfortunately, however, there 
exists a fundamental difference of opinion between the managers 
of the Society and several of 'the leading implement-makers 
respecting the proper mode of conducting shows of implements ; 
and, when recording the great success of the Worcester Exhi- 
bition, the occasion seems a suitable one for considering this ques- 
tion. The benefits conferred upon agriculture by the talent and 
enterprise of the makers of implements have been so great that 
no pains should be spared in the attempt to reconcile these con- 
flicting views ; or, should that prove impossible, it is at all events 
desirable to devote a brief space to a careful statement of the 
