Implement Shcnv at Leicester. 
461 
cannot say; the driver, instead of lifting the rake to unload it, lets go tlie 
handle, and it clears itself. To justify us in making any further remark, it 
would be quite necessary for us to see the implement at work. In fact, the esta- 
hlishment of triennial trials seems to require that the Judges of Miscellaneous 
Articles should have time allowed for the trial of any implement into which 
some supposed improvement may be introduced, and which they may consider 
.deserving of attention. For instance, we have spoken of novelties in a liquid 
manure-drill, a hay -maker, and a horse-rake. Because it is not their special 
year of trial it is no valid reason why a Society like ours should wait for probably 
two years before it announces this improvement to the public. The Society 
ought rather to be on the " look out " for advanced movements, and should be 
the first to herald them forth for the benefit of farmers. It is absurd to defer 
any deserved commendation of an implement because it belongs to a special 
class assigned to a special year. If the imjirovement be sufficient, let it be at 
once published under the Society's authority. It cannot prejudice the decisiou 
when the great triennial competition comes round, nor can it give any imdue 
advantage to an exhibitor so long as the Society provides men who will decide 
oa the strict merits of the machine. 
To us it appears that the " Miscellaneous " Judges should commence their 
work at the same time as the other Judges. The alteration in this rule at 
Leicester was fraught with inconvenience and disadvantage. All the medals 
might thus be carefully awarded (after any necessary trials had been made) on 
the evening before the first public show-day. It is due to successful exhibitors 
that it should be so ; and any lighter subjects requiring commendation might 
be left till the following morning, if they had not received previous attention. 
But some one exclaims, "This would make it necessary to have all articles in 
the yard a week before the first show-day." Not so ; although it seems that the 
attendance of the Judges was this year deferred until Tuesday night, the 14th, 
in consequence of the implements not being in the yard. Exhibitors would 
simply have to be informed that all implements qualified to compete for 
medals must be in the show-yard at the time field trials commence ; and this 
regulation would not at all necessitate the whole of the non-competing articles 
being sent in at so early a period, nor would it drive the Judges into the 
scarcely justifiable haste of selecting in four-and-twenty hours half a score of 
the best and most original points of interest in a catalogue of over six thousand 
articles, forcibly reminding them of a somewhat parallel position of unpleasant- 
ness, of people — 
" Doomed to the hardest fate of man alive, 
To make three guineas do the work of five." 
In fact, days required to be multiplied into weeks to judge of all that was 
"novel in application or an improvement in detail." 
We hope that all visitors saw the Combined Reaping and Mowing Machine 
(1507) of Messrs. Hancock and Foden, on an entirely new principle ; but of 
course we could not see it tried, and doubt whether it was not as difficult 
for the consulting engineer as ourselves to make calculations on its probable 
effectiveness. We understood, however, that it never had been tried, and we 
never found the owners at their stand. Stand 51, occupied by W. F.Johnson, 
of Leicester, had a very large collection of useful and also of ornamental goods, 
— ploughs, rollers, harrows, corn-drills, garden-seats, ice-safes, and " what- 
nots." The new implement by W. Smith of Foston, Yorkshire, in the shape 
of a 16-feet Self-feeding Sheep-Eack (3493), suitable for all kinds of food, the 
price being 71. 10s., was in our estimation a good and very cheap article. The 
Cooking-Kam;es of W. Barton, of Boston, Stand 99, were neat in appearance, 
and apparently economical in their consumption of fuel. 
