466 
MISCELLANEOUS IMPLEMENTS 
EXHIBITED AT CAMBRIDGE. 
The Royal Agricultural Society’s Country Meeting at Cambridge 
was the fifty-fifth of the series. The period between the first 
Show at Oxford in 1839 and the Show at Cambridge in 1894 
has witnessed a wonderful development in the machinery applied 
to agricultural purposes and in the interest taken in the Shows 
of the Royal Society by all classes connected, in whatever degree, 
with the cultivation of land. The great stride in the exhibits of 
machinery may be gauged at a glance by a statement of the 
figures: in 1839 the number of implements entered for exhibi- 
tion was 54; in 1894 the total was 6,031. But the latter 
figures, great as they are, have been exceeded on several previous 
occasions; notably at Kilburn in 1879, when, taking advantage 
of the nearness to the Metropolis, makers sent the huge total of 
11,878 implements for exhibition. The facilities for transit 
afforded by the railway systems have tended to this remarkable 
increase. But, in addition, and more importantly, to withstand 
the competition of the foreigners, farmers have had to revolu- 
tionise their methods during the past half-century ; and, to 
enable them if only partially to succeed, their need of labour- 
saving machinery has brought into operation all the ingenuity 
and the capital of makers who, eager to make their appliances 
known to the farmers, have availed themselves so freely as has 
been shown of the splendid opportunities afforded by the Royal 
Shows. 
It is interesting to note that at the Cambridge Show of 1840 
only 115 implements were exhibited; but the Judges in their 
Report referred to the exhibitors thus : “ At considerable cost to 
themselves (they) had responded to the Society’s invitation, and 
had sent from various parts of the country such a selection of 
implements as, beyond controversy, were never before collected 
in one showyard.” 
This remarkable statement conveys with striking force an 
idea of the poverty of the time in agricultural appliances. There 
were several duplicates of the different ploughs, chaff cutters, 
turnip machines, hoes, harrows, clod crushers, and drills, which 
made up the total display of 1840. In 1894 there were also 
many kinds of the same contrivance ; but the wonderful variety of 
