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CLASS IX.
REPORT ON AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.
[Her Majesty’s Commissioners consented that this Report should he published in the “ Journal of the Royal Agricul-tural Society,” a Committee appointed by that body having acted as the English portion of the Jury. It accordinglyappeared in the Number published in January 1852. The figures after the Names (between parentheses) refer to theExhibitors’ Numbers and to the Pages in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue.]
Jury.
P. Puset, M.P., F.R.S., Chairman and Reporter , Pusey, near Farringdon.
Col. Challonek, 11 Charles Street, Berkeley Square.
B. T. Brandreth Gibbs, Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly.
A. Hammond, "Westacrc, Swaffham, Norfolk.
Betjiman IIolbeg, Zollverein .
B. P. Johnson, United States ; Secretary of New York Agricultural Society.
Josh. Locke, M.P., F.R.S., 6 Chester Terrace, Regent’s Park.
C. M. Lampson, United States .
"W. Miles, M.P., Leigh Court, near Bristol.
L. C. E. Moll, France ; Professor of Agriculture at Conservatory of Arts and Manufac tures.Baron Mf.rtens o’Ostin, Belgium .
Professor Rau, Zollverein; Professor of Political Economy .
J. Villiers Shellev, Maresficld Park, Sussex.
H. S. Thompson, Moat Hall, near York.
* Chevalier De Klevle, Proxy for Professor Hlubeck.
Associate.
In endeavouring to fulfil the command of your RoyalHighness, that each Reporter should describe, as to itsgeneral state, the branch of industry which falls withinhis department, my task will lead me not to balance theclaims of rival inventions, which are far better shown bythe results of the trials given in the words of my col-leagues, nor yet to portray their construction, which canhardly be conveyed in words, or even by drawings, but tostate plainly, if I am able, the practical effect of agri-cultural machinery upon the soil or its products ; and so,it may be, to further the designs of that Exhibition whichyour Royal Highness purposed not for a gorgeous spec-tacle only, but, as it has worked itself out, for a focus inwhich the various nations might combine and comparetheir scattered rays of realised knowledge.
As our implements are intended not to bring about newconditions of soil, nor to yield new products of any kind,but to do with more certainty and cheapness what hadbeen done hitherto by employing the rude implements offormer centuries, certainty and cheapness of action areevidently the standard by which their merits have to betried, and chiefly the latter property, which forms thesuperiority of the spinning-jenny over the distaff, namely,economy.
The yearly shows and trials of the Royal AgriculturalSociety have certainly done move in England for agri-cultural mechanics in the last ten years than had beenattempted anywhere in all former time. Yet, though theinventions are many, they may be reduced to a few simpleclasses: in reviewing those classes, it will be most con-venient perhaps to follow the order of cultivation, begin-ning with the instruments of tillage, and, among these,with the plough.
I. Instruments of Tillage.
It was found about twelve years ago that in many partsof England ploughs drawn by four borses were still used,while in the same neighbourhood, or even parish, otherploughs were at work equally easy for two horses. Thecumbrous plough, resting on a heavy gallows and wheels,had been adapted to the clay soils when those soils werethe chief source of corn to the country, aud had beenhanded down from father to son, after the heavy lands
had been widely laid down to grazing ground, and theformer downs had become our principal arable land.Not only, however, did these obsolete monuments survive—it was also discovered by Mr. Handley, that the in-ventors of new ploughs, by rejecting the wheels as wellas the gallows, had produced, especially in the north, aplough which, though fashionable under the name ofswing plough, had little advantage in draught over theancient one. It was Messrs. Ransome who furnished themodern English plough with two low wheels, and withmould-boards adapted to different soils. Messrs. Howardfurther improved the mould-board. The mould-board,indeed, which raising each slice of earth (furrow slice)from its flat position gradually through an upright one,lays it over half inclined on the preceding slice, is theessential acting part of the plough. It should performthis spiral trausfer of a very rough material with an equalpressure both crossways and lengthways. The true shapeis founded on mathematical laws, but, as in a somewhatsimilar case of displacement, that of water by the bow ofa yacht, is doubtless best determined by actual trial. Thetest of perfection in the work of a plough is, that thefurrow-slice shall lie, after being turned over, in a per-fectly straight line, not only unbroken, but even un-cracked. It is by patient attention to this point that Mr.Busby, with the aid of an excellent farmer, Mr. Outh-waite, produced the beautiful mould-boards of his prize-ploughs. This unbroken furrow-slice requires somelength of mould-board ; and it is urged, on the otherhand, in behalf of short mould-boards, that they pulverisethe soil while they turn it over. Practical farmers, how-ever, know that to pulverise is not the immediate objectof ploughing land; but as the length of the English mould-boards surprised foreigners, it may not be uselessto state a further reason for that apparently excessivelength. Ours also were, in fact, made short and hollowfor our new ploughs, until at one of the Royal Agri-cultural Society’s trials all the selected ploughs werebrought to a stand in attempting to work a strong clay.The cause of the failure was this: the chief resistance tothe horses in ploughing proceeds not from the weight ofearth moved, which is insignificant, nor, unless theground be unusually baked, from the act of severing theearth, but from two other causes, namely, friction, andon certain soils still more from cohesion. Now, if the
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