448 
Implemmt Show at Leicester. 
We sliall ever retain the most pleasing reminiscence of our 
(lays of stewardship, and the many happy hours spent at Ply- 
mouth, Rurv, and Leicester. To our friend Mr. Gibbs we feel 
peculiarly indebted : his unvarying amiability and ever ready 
help in times of difficulty made the office a pleasure rather than 
a toil. To his untiring energy and methodical arrangement we 
must attribute the success which has for so many years attended 
our exhibitions. 
Siddington Mouse, August 227id, 18G8. 
XXX. — General Report on the Exhibition of Implements at the 
Leicester Meeting. By William Sanday, Senior Steward. 
The present paper will be one of very modest pretensions. It 
is at no time an easy matter to write anything very readable 
upon a trial of Implements. There is little variety or novelty in 
one Show as compared with another, and the only substantial 
ground is cut from under one's feet by the detailed Report of 
the Judges which is appended. To this I must refer all who 
take a practical interest in the subject. At the same time there 
may be perhaps some few remarks upon the general character- 
istics of the Show, which, though sufficiently obvious in them- 
selves, it may yet be worth while to put upon record in a brief 
and summary form. 
Lord Cathcart, who was Senior Steward last year, speaks of 
the exhibition of implements at Bury " as perhaps the best ever 
known." These words were doubtless true at the time, but they 
have ceased to be true now. There can be no doubt whatever 
that in the implement department at least. Bury was surpassed 
by Leicester. Both in magnitude and in excellence the Show 
this year is without a parallel in the history of the Society. 
The improvement in the quality of the implements exhibited 
was as marked as the increase in their number, and yet it would 
be difficult to pick out any one point in which the advance has 
heen made. It has been for the most part an advance in con- 
struction generally, and has not depended upon any one new and 
striking invention. In this respect it would seem that we have 
gone almost as far as it is possible to go, though on the other 
hand there is no saying where the progress of science will tend. 
Some fresh surprise is often I'eady for us just Avhen it is least 
expected. 
In the ploughs, however, there is one distinct novelty ; though 
even here the novelty is not so much in the idea itself as in the 
application of it. Since our last trial, or perhaps I should say 
within the last five years, ploughs have been fitted with patent 
