574 Weather- Wisdom and the Harvest. [October, 
material to be dried is automatically lifted up, tossed, and 
shaken in the current of hot air, and gradually passed on 
from the furnace end of the machine to the outlet end. 
This task is executed, as will be seen on reference to the 
illustration, by a series of tines fixed on cranks, and imi- 
tating simply, but most successfully, the adiion of the arm 
of the haymaker as he lifts up and spreads a portion of hay 
with his fork. It is an important point that this machinery 
though highly ingenious and to appearance delicate, is 
liable to get out of order. 
The advantages of this process of machine-drying are very 
striking. Time and labour are saved to such an extent that 
the farmer will be able to get in his crops with his ordinary 
staff of labourers, and without the necessity of employing 
gangs of strangers, who are often careless, disorderly, and 
untrustworthy. So speedy is the adtion of the machine that 
at Neston Park, Wilts, the seat of G. P. Fuller, Esq., 
30 tons of hay were made in twenty-three hours, at 13s. 6 d. 
per ton, including the cost of mowing and stacking, though 
rain was falling frequently. In a second trial 33 acres were 
cleared in twenty hours, at a rather less cost, the bailiff in 
charge expressing the opinion that it will pay to use the 
machine even in fine weather. At Kimbolton Castle 7 acres 
of a heavy crop of clover were dried in seven hours by men 
who had had no experience with the machine at all. On 
Lord Ashburton’s farm at Alresford, 19 acres of water 
meadow-grass were dried at 105. 6 d. per acre ; whilst in an 
adjoining meadow a farmer cut his grass on July 15th, and 
after working at it by hand-labour till August nth found it 
all spoilt. At Haarlem, on the farm of M. Amersfoordt, 
grass that had been cut for two days was made into hay in 
five minutes , and could be stacked with perfedt safety. It 
must be remembered that the economy of labour, and the 
rapid withdrawal of the crop from the chance of damage by 
floods, &c., is not the whole of the benefit. The improve- 
ment in quality is most striking. Some time back, before 
the pradtical results of the drying-machine became known, 
Prof. Voelcker, F.R.S., expressed the following opinion in 
the “Transactions of the Royal Agricultural Society — “ If 
hay could be made rapidly, without exposure to the sun’s 
rays and the evening dews, it would contain much more nu- 
trition than now.” That this opinion applies to the machine- 
made hay is plain. It is of a bright green colour, of a 
stronger fragrance than ordinary air-dried hay, and is evi- 
dently preferred by all kinds of stock. Mr. Fuller wrote 
only a few days ago to the effedt that twenty steers have 
