672 
Harvest Saving : 
[November, 
VII, HARVEST SAVING : 
THE READING COMPETITION, 
wT might reasonably be expedited that the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of Great Britain would be the very fore- 
^ most body in the kingdom to promote means for 
arresting the severe loss which we seem destined to undergo 
from bad weather at harvest time, — a loss estimated at the 
average figure of six millions sterling yearly. But what 
must we think when we find this powerful and influential 
organisation, not merely looking on in apparent apathy, 
raising no finger to put an end to this national calamity, but 
as far as in it lies seeking to discredit the efforts of private 
individuals ? 
The results of the Reading trial are, we must say, exciting 
both surprise and indignation, and many persons are 
beginning to ask what is the raison d’etre of an Agricultural 
Society which can thus mistake its duties? The fadfls are 
simply as follows : — Mr. Sutton, the eminent seedsman, of 
Reading, doing what the Society has strangely omitted to 
do, offered a prize for the best mode of drying hay artificially, 
and the Society then appointed three judges to decide. Mr. 
Gibbs, whose drying machine we have noticed on two former 
occasions, rightly considering that its efficiency had been 
already proved in practical working beyond all reasonable 
question, declined to compete. A gentleman, however, who 
had bought one of these machines and used it with complete 
success on his own farm, sent it in for trial. Only one other 
apparatus on a quite different principle appeared on the 
field. The material to be dried consisted of coarse marsh- 
grass, which had been shaken out by hay-tedders whilst the 
rain was falling, exposed on the ground to five day’s rain, so 
as to get as wet and dirty as it could. As a morning paper 
aptly says : “ It was trampled and kicked about by enraged 
visitors, and rolled in by nearly all the dirty little boys and 
girls of Reading.” Being in this condition, the Gibbs 
machine dried it in six hours, so as to be fit for stacking. It 
has since been sold by public auction at the rate of £3 6s. 
per acre. The grass dried by the other process, after being 
under treatment for a much longer time, only fetched one 
guinea per acre. 
Of course all right-thinking persons will conclude that 
