The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-17 00:00:00

Royal Agricultural Society's Meeting.

PLYMOUTH, Saturday.
In the remote Devo*ian peninsula, far on towards
the Land's-end, -the Society has this year pitched
its camp, called over its muster-roll of prize animals,
and opened its brilliant field-days and sham-fights
of rural machinery. True to its educational office,
the Society visits with its migratory meeting a dis-
trict supposed to need agricultural enlightenment ;
but it is a question whether the Council did not push
matters to an extremity when it rushed past Bath,
Bristol, and Exeter, on a single line of rail, to a site
having no great area of country on one side, and
only a population of mackerels and John Dorys on
the other. The spirited farmers of Cornwall and
the breeders of Devon are grateful for this benevo-
lent arrangement, but all England beside is taxed
heavily to send its cattle and machinery into a dis-
tant corner, with little prospect of active business—
at least for the implement makers. Apprehension
exists, too, as to the pecuniary success of the meet-
ing. The tripartite city, seaport, and dockyard of
Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, with 157,000
inhabitants, may furnish enough sightseers to pay
expenses ; but the scanty railroad accommodation
does not promise those many thousands of shillings
on the cheap days which are necessary to put the
stewards of finance into good spirits. And the more
to be regretted would be a failing revenue on this
occasion, as the Society is to " bury" itself next
year in a neat agricultural town in Suffolk.

The opening day of the show is Monday ; but the
latter half of the present has been occupied by the
field trials of machinery—always of great inte-
rest and importance, and so increasing in dimen-
sions that the whole system threatens to break
down unless the arrangements are subjected to
considerable modification. It is four years ago
since drills, horse-hoes, haymakers, horse-rakes,
grass-mowers, and reaping machines came up for
examination ; yet this quadrennial division of agri-
cultural implements has brought such a hug? com-
petition that a dozen judges and engineers are unable
to settle the awards until the middle of next week
—perhaps not the most important then—and this
with a style of testing that is of necessity hurried
and imperfect. Either sowing-machines, weeding-
machines, haymaking-machines, and harvesting-
machines must have separate years to themselves,
or else the Society must enlarge the scale of its trials,
installing more judges and carrying on more opera-
tions simultaneously. Thus, at the present meeting,
the drills, pressers, and manure-distributors would
occupy the judges four days very well, without
their being called upon to inspect the working of
horse-hoes, turnip-thinners, single-row grubbers,
and a multiplicity of similar tools. And, again, the
grass-mowers, the reapers, the haymakers, and rakes
would ha to found ample work for three sets of judges,
due time being allowed to each implement. Had
the operations been thus expended, with plenty of
space, and field after field of grass, clover, raid
corn; affording large plots for each machine, we
should have had varied and continual interest, with-
out the annoying delays and waiting for something
to be done which generally characterizes these com-
petitions. The home trade in reaping-machines is
growing immensely, and great numbers are now
hesitating with their orders for the ensuing harvest
until the Plymouth decisions are published ; yet all
that the judges have time to do is just to take each
machine a bout or two in a ten-acre field of badly-
laid oats, " pluck" all that are not at once up to the
mark, and appoint the few that "pass" to a more
lengthened trial at some future time. At any rate,
it is an open question at present whether the se-
lected machines shall meet for a final examination
after the show is over, or shall just fight it out in a
few acres' scramble on a piece of light rye here pro-
vided for their cutters. The hurry has been made
worse by a steady unflinching downpour of rain on
one day, and sloppy weather during the next.
Twenty-five manual-delivery reapers tried their
strength in the crop of very heavystorm-broken oats,
green in straw, though with grain ripe enough to
shell out with rough usage, most of the machines
attempting too much, taking a full breadth of cut,
when half a breadth of such a tremendous crop gave
almost more stuff than any man could manipulate
with his rake, while the horses, unused to a crowd of
people (with difficulty kept off by a band of police-
men), rushed on at an unnatural pace. Few of the
tippling-platforms could work without frequent
stoppages, and it was evident that no advantage is
derived from them in extremely heavy and tangled
crops ; in fact, the rakeman, having enough to do
with his hands, requires a firm foothold rather than
a board that will rise with his foot. It is true, how-
ever, that in ordinary crops the tippling• platform,
if properly constructed, greatly facilitates delivery.
Thus both Wood's and Hornsby's slat platforms
acted well, and Picksley and Sims's machine made
very satisfactory work. The most complete success,
however, was that of Cuthbert's simply-made
machine, with a flat immovable platform, the cutting
being beautifully done, and the delivery, in small
bunches ready for binding, accomplished with re-
gularity and apparent ease. No stoppage occurred
either with the one-horse or two-horse machine
worked by Cuthbert, but the pace was not overdone,
and the rakeman had more discretion than to over-
task hiniself by taking a full cut in such a crop. In
this class was tried Hornsby's new reaper, in which
a rakeman gathers the crop to the machine, catches
the cut corn upon a tipping slate platform, and
by a movement of his foot drops the bunch upon
a number of endless chains on a lower platform,
these delivering the bunch at one side out of the
next track of the horses. The cutting was good,
and the delivery in sheaf well effected along three
sides of the field ; but the work was not so well
done—and this was the case with most of the ma-
chines_up-hill in the direction of the general lay of
the crop. In working this machine we have the ad-
vantage of the rakeman's discretion in separating
and lifting up the tangled corn and forming it into
a proper bunch, while the man is relieved of the
mere drudgery—and tremendous work it often is—
of pushing the out corn off the platform. But the
sheaves are not only laid in good form for binding
—an important point, both in facilitating labour and
securing most of the ears at the top of the " stook"
when set up—they are also delivered completely out
of the way of the next course of the machine ; so
that, as with all side-delivery reapers, the machine
has never to wait for the precise number of hands
proportioned to the crop, and barley or heavy wheat
may be left for any length of time untried and dry-
ing under sun and air. Self-acting sheafing machines
have been introduced since the last (or Leeds) trial
of reapers, and with considerable success. Samuel-
Hon's automatic rakes, revolving something like four
sails of a windmill on an axis nearly vertical, and
guided by a circular cam so as to enter into the crop
endwise, lay the corn back over the cutters, and
then clear off the cut sheaf by sweeping radially
over the platform, worked with a quiet motion, fa-
vourable to very ripe grain, and would evidently
have delievered bunches in moderately good form if
the crop had been lessbulky. Wood's machine, with
a single rake-arm, revolving in a similar position,
but in conjunction with an ordimiry reel on a hori-
zontal axis for bringing the corn upon the platform,
has also great merit ; and the delivery can be delayed
at pleasure,by the driver to form sheaves of any size.
Burgess and Key's machine made the cleanest and
best cut, but the breadth taken proved too much for
the delivering powers of the rake ; and the velocity
of the rake (revolving in the place of one of the real
boards) caused it to toss up into the air much
of the corn that should have been quietly laid in
neat sheaves. In any moderate crop the action
would probably be much more efficacious. Another
machine of this noted firm, in which a smoother move-
ment is given to the rake, and the whole framework
and mechanism amazingly lightened and simplified,
did better work. One point made apparent during
the trials is, that sheaf delivery, if not effected by
too sudden and violent a motion, thrashes out less
grain than swathe delivery does—at least in this
tangledioat crop--as only the outer portions of each
sheaf meet with concussion, while in the swathe
almost every ear encounters a hard stroke from the
reel-board, the platform, or projections on the belts
or chains. The screw platform of Burgess and
Key's old machine was comparatively free from this
objection ; Hornsby's swathing machine worked
very well until the crop proved too much for the

dividing iron ; and the machines of the Beverley
Company hardly proved equal to the difficult task
before them. These reapers possess peculiar faci-
lities ; the horses, walking behind, can charge into
the midst of a standing crop without any previous
opening of a path by the sithe, and the swathe may
be delivered to right or left ; and, as there is no
"side-draught," the three-horse machine can take
an 8 feet width of cut, mowing amuch larger acreage
per day than is attainable by any other reaper. The
framing, the position of the platform, and details
of the workingparts have been latelymuch improved,
and it is only in the heaviest crops that this revival
of Bell's old invention seems at fault.

The judges, Messrs. Caldwell, Coleman, Martin,
Wortley, and Mr. Bramwell, C.E., thoroughly
practical and trustworthy men, have all the final
testing yet before them ; but, having wet grass to
cut while the corn was drying, they were able to
put the grass-mowers through the requisite ordeal
of cutting plots and then submitting to the clock-
work indications of Mr. Olmes's draught-dynamo-
meter. Fourteen machines, tried upon a piece of
thin, weedy meadow, laid flat by rain, and with a
difficult bottom for the cutters to travel over exhi-
bited various ingenuities in construction. In Barber's
Eagle mower you can lift either end of the finger-
bar to pass over an obstruction. In Samuelson's
mower you raise the finger-bar and set the wheel-
work in or out of gear—all by means of your foot.
In Child's American clipper the draught-iron from
the whipple-trees is made to relieve the finger-bar
of its downward pressure upon the ground, and by
a lever you can give the cutters more or less pitch,
without stopping the horses. In Hornsby's mower
the finger-bar is at liberty not only to rise and fall
of its own accord at either end, but also to twist, as
it were, so that the cutters always creep close to the
ground, the pitch being self-regulated by a small
castor-wheel travelling in advance. In Kearsley's
mower the whole frame accommodates itself in this
manner to inequalities of surface, gauged by a larger
castor-wheel travelling in front, and the framework
is of wrought-iron. Burgess and Key's new mower
packs all the mechanism in a wonderfully small
space between the finger-bar and one of the main
driving wheels, over the track cleated by the last
course of the machine ; and thus tLa crank-shaft
can be placed close to the ground, bringing it on a
level with the cutters, reducing the friction in
work, and shortening and strengthening the con-
necting-rod. It is a pity that this very clever im-
provement should have appeared in unfavourable
circumstances, the rather short-pointed fingers of
this particular machine being unsuited to the low,
matted grass which it was to cut. Burgess and
Key's old machine, the most powerful and best
adapted for such bulky crops as those of Middlesex,
made splendid work, the draught being 3391 b.,
at a pace of 3/ miles per hour, andthe area cut
1.94 acre per hour. Hornsby's cut closer than any
other machine ; but, probably owing to the acute
angle of the knives, took very much more power ;
the draught was 4321 b., at a pace of 3fmiles per
hour, and the area cut was 1.81 acre per hour.
Kearsley's machine made exceedingly good work ;
the draught 3371 b., at a pace of 3/ miles per hour ;
the cut being 1.91 acre per hour. And Wood's old
machine quite equalled this in style of performance,
while the draught was only 2671 b., at a pace of 3/
miles per hour, with an area of 1.58 acre cut per
hour. In all probability the prize money will be
won by Wood and Kearsley, with either Hornsby
or Burgess and Key coming in for a share.