AGRICULTURAL MACHINES AND IMPLEMENTS—AWARDS.
Class IX.]
Hi
This saving of labour or expense, though large forland—a material certainly very intractable—is small ascompared with the saving effected in the weaving ofcalico, or the knitting of stockings. But it is importantto observe, on the other hand, that the cost of the meanswhich produce the saving is comparatively insignificant.'When the distaff and knitting-needle were abolished,huge factories had to be built, and filled with intricateclockwork of spiuning-jennies and looms, costing thou-sands of pounds. In agriculture we buy a few simpledurable tools; and it is evident that a farmer setting upnow in business, who, instead of the old waggons withthree horses each, should buy one-horse carts, and thesmaller number of horses required by such carts and byother improved machinery, would find that, without anyincrease of outlay whatever beyond the old scale, lie couldacquire all requisite modern machinery, with one excep-tion, indeed—the steam-engine, but the steam-engine isoften hired. It is therefore further demonstrated thatthe new agricultural machines have, with reference to theamount of saving produced by them, the merit of very greatcheapness.
There is a further effect of machinery upon agriculturewhich has hitherto been overlooked. The main difficultyof farming has always lain in its uncertainty. Thoughmachinery has not altogether cured, it certainly has muchmitigated, this evil. On undrained clays a wet wintermay destroy half the yield of the wheat. On the sameland drained, the wheat may escape altogether unhurt,and you may also plough heavy land in wet weatherwhen drained, though you could not before. Upon anyland wheat may suffer in winter, but in spring the pressersettles it in its bed, and the manure distributor with acheap sprinkling restores it to vigour. In sowing barleyearliness may save the crop ; but the ground is often toocloddy, though the season is wearing away, and May-drought approaching. This cloddincss may be prevented,as has been said, by the paring-plough, or, if it could notbe prevented, may be remedied by the clod-crusher orNorwegian harrow; and besides these implements, thecultivator does the plough’s work in one-fourth of theformer time, thus enabling the farmer to profit by theauspicious hour of seed-time. And so too with the turnip:the land, being prepared for it in the previous autumnand winter, is moist to receive the seed; the dry drill,supplying it with superphosphate, saves it almost cer-tainly from the fly; or yet more, the water-drill, antici-pating the clouds, makes its seed-time independent ofweather, while the horse-hoe afterwards preserves it fromneglect in the busiest harvest-time. Again, while machi-nery remedies the absence, it also guards against the in-convenient arrival of rain, by making hay and now evenreaping corn while the sun shines. It may be furthersaid, then, that machinery has given to farming what itmost wanted, not absolute, indeed, but comparative cer-tainty.
I wish I could add that the use of machinery has ad-vanced as rapidly as its improvement. Still it hasadvanced greatly, as is shown by the increase, not onlyof implements but of eminent implement makers, and thesale has never been so great as it has been this year. Yeteven the best new machines are not yet adopted intogeneral use. This incomplete progress may, however,easily be accounted for. The farmer, whose life issecluded, has little opportunity of seeing them, and it isremarkable that nearly all our first implement-makerslive on the east side of England, in those four countiesfrom which the other great improvements of agriculturehave also proceeded. For threshing-machines again,though universal, until very lately no record of theirwork has been published, so that a farmer in one county,threshing thirteen quarters only a day, could not pos-sibly ascertain that in another county three times thatamount was the proper work of a day.
But it must be further admitted, that few even of ourbest farmers, though they may possess the new im-plements, carry their use thoroughly out. It seemsevident that the new implements require a neiv system. Asyet many farmers use the drill, and do not use the horse-hoe afterwards, the use of which is pointed out by thedrill, while most farmers still use the plough previously,which the drill may have rendered superfluous. It is ofcourse very difficult to give up old practices, but theresult of the whole inquiry into agricultural machineryappears to be this,—that, inasmuch as the new machineryeffects a great saving of labour, and is also exceedinglyinexpensive, giving also moderate certainty to a businessproverbial for its precariousuess, farmers ought no longerto bind themselves down by ancient customs in husbandry,but should consider at once how these practices may bereformed altogether, in order thoroughly to carry out theadvantages of modern mechanics. They should look asmuch to a shed furnished with suitable implements as totheir stables, remembering that the best of these imple-ments, though it cost as much as a horse, may take theplace of a horse; and, furthermore, when once purchased,does not, like the horse, entail a weekly expense after-wards. That this extension as well as improvement willcome to pass in the mechanics of husbandry there is noreason to doubt, nor that both have been accelerated bythe opportunity for careful study of agricultural imple-ments which has been afforded during five months throughtheir exhibition, under your Koval Highness’s auspices,among all the other products of human industry.
Note.— In this Report it occasionally happens that anExhibitor is named more than once in connexion withdifferent articles he has brought forward as entitled to aMedal; as, however, no person can obtain more than oneMedal in the same Class, that mark of distinction must beunderstood to represent the excellence of each of the objectsrewarded,
JURY AWARDS, CLASS IX.
COUNCIL MEDAL.
Nation.
No. and Page inCatalogue.
Name of Exhibitor.
Objects Rewarded.
No.
Page.
15
366
Busby, 4V. _____
Two or four-horse plough, horse hoe on the ridge,ribbing corn drill, and cart.
135
380
Crosskill, W. -----
Norwegian harrow, meal mill, cart, clod crusher,and gorse bruiser.
142
335
Horse hoe, general purpose drill, four-row turnipdrill on the flat, improved hand barrow-drill forgrass seeds, steam engine, and thrashing machine.
233
395
Corn and seed drill, drop drill, two-row turnip drillon the ridge, oil-cake bruiser, steam engine.
U nited States - -
73
1437
JPCormick C. H. - _ - _
Reaping machine.