The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-20 00:00:00

ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY'S
MELTING'.

--
LEICESTER, Saturday.

A show which has taken £2,050 in two days,
nearly another thousand pounds to-day, and will
in all probability gather some three thousand
pounds more in shillings on Monday and Tuesday,
must-be looked upon as one of the most successful
iu the 30 years' history of the society. The number
of visitors on the second half-crown day never does
equal that of the first, but still the cooling shower
of this morning has not operated against the influx
of people from town and country ; each main point
of interest in the show-ground has attracted some-
thing like a crowd ; especially has the spacious
horse-ring been thickly surrounded at parading
time, and we hear that among the implements and
machinery business has been lively. The railway
managers have arranged for great days on Monday
and Tuesday, expecting to bring at least 40,000
persons to Leicester on Monday, when the solid
work will begin for Inspector Baldray and his me-
tropolitan constables of the A division, who always
represent the interests of order at the society's meet-
ings.

We have a famous show of horses. In the aged
class of agricultural stallions, there was a close com-
petition between Earl Beauchamp's Young Lofty
and Mr. William Weicher's Honest Tom ; the lat-
ter, however, again wins the first prize, declaring
him to be the best in England, while the Earl's horse
is properly placed second. In the two-year old
class, Mr. Henry Hitchcock's Lion is first, Mr.
J. Manning's Conqueror second, and her Majesty
the Queen wins a third prize for her Clydesdale
Sandy. In the aged class of Suffolk stallions Mr.
W. Wilson's The President is first, and Mr. Thomas
Crisp gains both the second and third prizes. For
two-year-old Suffolk stallions Mr. G. D. Badham
is first, and Mr. W. Wilson second.
Ten thorough-bred stallions suitable for getting
hunters make a very creditable show. Sir George
Cholmeley's Angelus, a splendid chestnut, is first,
Mr. 'William Gulliver's Naseby is second, and
Earl Spencer's General Hesse is third. In the class
of stallions not less than 14 hands 2 inches, nor
exceeding 15 hands 2 inches, suitable for getting
hackneys, Mr. Charles Beart's Ambition is first,
Captain Barlow's Lucifer is second, and a stallion
of Mr. W. King is third. Of pony stallions under
14 hands 2 inches, Mr. Joseph Baldock's Little
Jack Horner is first, and Mr. C. Groucock's King
Arthur is second. Thera is a good class of five-year
old hunters, the prizes going to Mr. E. Hornby and
Captain Heygate. In the still better four-year-old
class, the first prize is won by Mr. John B. Booth's
superb Brigadier, and the second :goes to Mr. J.
Drage. In the large and fine class of hunter mares,
the first prize is won by Mr. John Byron, and the
second by Captain Heygate. For hackney mares
Mr. F. Cook is first, and Mr. W. S. Woodroffe is
second.

Four-year-old hackneys are numerous, though
not of very high general merit. Mr. Algernon
Hack is first, and Mr. F. Wollaston second ; for
cobs Mr. C. Groucock is first and Mr. J. VV arth is
second ; for pony mares Mr. J. Warth is first and
Captain Barlow second ; for agricultural mares Mr.
W. Tennant is first and Mr. J. G. Attwa is
second ; Mr. S. Wolton takes the first prize for a
Suffolk mare and foal; for agricultural fillies Mr.
Marple is first, Mr. T. Baldwin second, and her
Majesty the Queen third. For Suffolk fillies, Major
F. M. Wilson wins both first and second prizes, and
in a specially fine class.
One of the best points in the show-ground this
year is the arrangement of the machinery in motion
department in two lines of shedding occupying the
same relation to the other implement stands as head-
lands do to furrows in a field, so that every exhibi-
tor's machinery in motion is opposite or very close
to his stand of other articles—a most convenient
plan both for exhibitors and for visitors. The de-
partment of seeds, models, and miscellaneous wares
is also placed in a mucla better position than here-
tofore, and in the centre of the show-ground we
pass through the avenues made by the long seed
stalls of James Carter and Co., Sutton and Sons,
and Thomas Gibbs and Co., never more interest-
ing or beautiful with specimens than on the present
occasion.

The principal objects among the machinery in
motion are briefly summed up. We have Ransomes
and Sims' new series of portable steam-engines, with
large diameter cylinders, considerable improvements
in other working parts, and watr-heaters acting
through double-barrelled feed pumps. Clayton and
Shuttleworth's portable engines heat the feed water
by taking a portion of the exhaust steam for the
purpose; their Bury prize fixed engine is shown,
and the perfection of workmanship is such as may
be looked for from the Lincoln works, which we
are informed are actually sending out more than
900 steam-engines per year. A cluster of people is
always congregated about Powis, James, and Co.'s
spoke-making machine ; Charles Powis and Co.'s
tying-up and planing machine is very clever, and
valuable to joiners and builders. Brown and
Lock show a low-priced portable engine, in-
tended to be serviceable, but avoiding the cost
of high external finish. Riches and Watts exhibit
the American heated-air engine ; A. Robinson
shows the Ilugon gas engine ; Tangye, Brothers,
have a simply-constructed steam-pump, without
crank-shaft, wheel, or any rotary motion. On Tux-
ford and Sons' stand we have a fine show of portable
engines of one up to 20-horse power, the small
engines being now used in innumerable ways for
saving labour, and the adoption of the expansion
principle in all these engines insures the greatest
possible economy in fuel. A cleverly• contrived
self-lifting horse-rake is shown by Maynard ; G. R.
Cowen works an effective little rotary engine ;
Garrett and Sous bring out a new straw-stacker or
elevator, with canvas web as well as forks. Mars-
den and Co. perform wonders with their American
stone-breaking machine ; Ruston, Proctor, and Co.
show a number of well-made portable engines and
thrashing-machines ; llornsby and Sons have an
extensive show of their highly-finished engines and
thrashing machines ; Barrows and Stewart have a new
windlass for steam cultivation, in which one drum
is lowered out of gear and the other lifted into gear
simultaneously by a crank axle movement. Brown
and May have a new condensing water heater at-
tached to the side of their portable engine boiler,
by which a large percentage of fuel and of water,
too, is saved, and yet the makers price their engines
no higher than before. Oa Appleby Brothers'
stand is a wonderfully ingenious rock-boring ma-
chine, driven by a rotatory steam engine. Amies,
Barford, and Co. have brought out a straw, hay, or
corn stacking machine, carrying the stuff to a very
great height, and being driven either by a belt from
an engine or thrashing machine, or handpower,
or by a horse walking round and round
underneath the elevator. This is a remarkably
well contrived and portable machine, saving a great
deal of time as well as labour in operation. Norton
and Co.'s tube wells have made quite a sensation
by piercing into the arid soil of the show-ground
and bringing up abundant and refreshing supplies
of cold water—in some places failing, but succeed-
ing where the tube finds a " sand craw " in the
clay ; so that one of the popular drinks throughout
the yard is this " Abyssinian water."
We cannot pretend to describe the 337 well-filled
stands of implements, machines, and various arti-
cles, but may mention a few. We have never seen
at any previous meeting anything like so large and
valuable an assortment of tools and mechanism
manufactured by the exhibitor as the four hundred
articles here shown by Hunt an .l Pickering, of
Leicester. Nicholson, of Newark, has a very fine
stand of haymakers, horse-rakes, &e. J. and F.
Howard, of Bedford, exhibit, in wonderfully great
variety, the horse and steam power field imple-
ments for which they are so celebrated—in-
deed, this firm has evidently exerted every effort
to support the high character of the mechanical
part of the Leicester show—Burgess and Key's
reapers ; John Fowler and Co.'s steam-tillage
implements for effecting almost every opera-
tion, and almost enabling the farmer to work his
laud without horses ; Picksley and Sims' feeding-
house machinery ; Ashford's carriages, including
the fascinating new "Canoe" waggonette, with
overhead canopy (a quite novel invention) ;