FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8964, 23 August 1892, Page 3

FARM NOTES FROM ENGLAND.

[by OUR English AGRICULTURAL CORRESPONDENT.] 1 London, June 25. THE "ROYAL" SHOW. The fifty-third annual show of the Royal Agricultural Society, held at Warwick, comes to an end this evening. Ib has been in all respects a very successful exhibition. A description of this greatest of all the agricultural shows of the world may be interesting to colonial readers who have never seen it. The show-yard occupies a great space in the magnificent park of the Earl of Warwick, and from ib there is a fine view of Warwick Castle, one of the most noble buildings in the country. The implement shedding alone covers 12,511 running feet of ground, and the shedding occupied by horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, farm produce, and poultry probably extends over quite as much ground. If the great rings in which the animals are judged and paraded are added, the live stock department musb be Suite as extensive as the implement ivision. There is a great ring for hunters and hackneys, and for the parade of cattle and all classes of horses, with a grandstand attached to it. Smaller rings are devoted to harness horses, shire horses, Clydesdales, Suffolks, Shorthorn cattle, Herefords, Downs and Sussex cattle, Jerseys and Guernseys, and Kerries and Dexters. Sheep and pigs are judged just outside their pens. A large shed is devoted to butter, cheese, preserved fruit, and grain, and other sheds to poultry, bee-keeping appliances, hives, and honey. Then there is the working dairy, where there aro demonstrations of butter and cheesemaking, and of other kinds of dairy work, with lectures. To it is attached the dairy annexe, where machines such as cream separators and buttermakers are tested.

In the implemenb division long rows of shedding are devoted to machinery-in-motion, scores of engines being ab work driving machines of various kinds, from the powerful disintegrator which grinds bones, feeding stuffs, or corn to the little mill which farmers use. Next we come to regular streets of sheds filled with all kinds of farm implements, machines, tools, carriages, and dairy and domestic appliances. The implement department was opened on Saturday last, and the live stock division on Monday morning, at 9 o'clock, when the judges began their work. There are separate judges for every breed of cattle, except three of the smallest lots, and for nearly every breed of sheep and pigs. Yet the work of judging was not finished till about 5 p.m. Sometimes it is not finished in a day. After the judging day there are parades of horses and cattle daily ; also buttermaking competitions, demonstrations in the working dairy, horseshoeing competitions, exhibitions of beedriving, and lectures on bee-management. Saturday.was a half-crown day, and few people attended. There are never many visitors to see the implements alone, and those who do want to examine them carefully havo plenty of room. Monday was a five-shilling day, and 3570 people paid for admission, while a great number of members of the society and exhibitors entered with their tickets. Tuesday and Wednesday were half-crown days, and about 34,000 people paid to enter on these two days.- Yesterday and to-day were shilling days. On such occasions the visitors aro often very numerous ; but I have not yet soen tho Warwick numbers. Wet weather reduces the number greatly, of course, and yesterday rain fell nearly all day. A military band played daily after Monday. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York visited the show privately on Saturday evening and Monday, and publicly on Tuesday morning, attracting a great number of ladies. A " Royal Show" is indeed a pretty sight, as well as a wonderful one. Nowhere can a foreigner gain a better idea of the appearance of the nobility and gentry of England than on the judging day, when nearly all the best country families and other well-to-do people of the district were present. But now to say . something about the exhibits. The horses are thus divided :— Hunters, 122; coach horses, harness horses, and ponies, 34; hackneys and ponies, 94 ; shire horses, 12S ; Clydesdales, 30; Suffolks, 31 ; nondescript agricultural horses, 7. This show was nothing like/as large as that of Doncastor last year ; bub the general range of quality was high. The shires especially were a wonderful lot. The champion prize was gained by Mr. J. Wainwright, of Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, with Bury Victor Chief, which was the champion at the last Shire Horse Show in London. The show of cattle was one of the best ever held, it was made up as follows :— Shorthorns, 135 ; Herefords, 53 ; Devons, 22; Sussex, 29; Longhorns and Welsh, 35; Red Polled, 37 ; Jerseys, 178; Guernseys, 45; Kerry and Dexter, 50. The Shorthorns were a splendid lot. The champion bull is Major, by Field-Marshall, the property of Mr. 11. Williams, of Moor Park, Yorkshire ; while Lord Polwarth gained the female championship with Truth. Herefords were comparatively few, but choice, and the other breeds were also well represented. To go into detail about the prizes would fill pages of this paper. The useful little Kerries and Dexters were better shown than at any previous exhibition. Several English breeders have now large herds of these animals, and they have improved the breeds greatly during the last few years. Tho displays of Jerseys and Guernseys were wonderful. In the sheep division there were 35 pens of Leicesters (single rams and pens of three ewes and of three lambs), 28 of Cotswolds, 36 of Leicesters, 56 of Oxford Downs, 238 of Shropshires, 102 of Southdowns, 61 of Hampshires, 23 of Suffolks, 21 of Border Leicesters, and 10 of Welsh mountain sheep. The Shropshires made a magnificent show, being the great breed of the district. There was also a splendid lob of Southdowns, while all the other breeds were fairly or well represented. The exhibitions of pigs and poultry were also highly creditable. There were numbers of improved implements and machines, and no fewer than 123 entries were classed a3 "new," in competition for the society's ten medals. But only a few were striking novelties. The most sensational was a new Danish milking machine, exhibited by Messrs. Nicholson, of Newark-on-Trenb. This is not a suction apparatus, as the other new milkers brought out last year are. It imitates the action of hand milking, by means of two pairs of elastic roller segments, which have rocking, approaching, and receding movements, and milk all four teats of the cow ab the same time. The machine is suspended in a framework from the cow's back, and the power is applied by the operator turning a crank. I cannot believe that this machine will be at all commonly used, even if it proves harmless to cows, for there cannot be much saving of time in using it, as the framework has to be shifted from one cow to another. The suction machines will milk several cows at time, and one of them has been brought pretty near to perfection. Another new dairy machine is an addition to the numerous Laval cream separators, exhibited by the Dairy Supply Co., of London. It is a hand-power machine, named the " Farmer's Alpha," stated to be of the capacity of 60 gallons an hour. The same firm show a new butter-worker for factory use, with all its gearing below the table.

A few other novelties may bo described. One of the most remarkable is a hay tedder exhibited by tho Harrison Patents Company, of Stamford. The fashion in these machines has run of late in favour of what are styled " kickers," a term descriptive of their action upon the hay, as contrasted with the rotary motion of the older haymakers. But the inventor of the ' newmachine in question has hit upon a very ingenious contrivance combining the two actions, and has produced a rotary " kicker." It is to be presumed that an opportunity of testing the work of this machine will be afforded during the week. Another complete novelty, though ib is strange that it should be so, is a combination of seed-sower and roller, exhibited by Messrs. Cotton and Co., of Willaston, Crewe. In sowing clover seeds farmers commonly use a seed barrow, rolling the seed in afterwards ; bub in this case the barrow is fixed in front of the roller, the distributing barrel being worked by chain gearing from the axle of the roller. Ib is wonderful that so simple an expedient has not been in common operation long ago. The only drawback is that a roller with shafts must be used, and it is not usual to have shafts on such light rollers as are used for covering seed. A very powerful pulveriser of new design and construction, and

admirably compact, is at work upon the stand occupied by the Central Cyclone Company, of London. Ib is adapted for grinding corn, rice, feeding stuffs, bones, phosphates, and other solid materials. Messrs. Wood and Sons, of Glasgow, have a very convenient weighing machine for cattle and loaded carts, the cattle pen portion being easily folded up, without being taken from its standing position, so as to make room for a vehicle. A simple invention, bub one of greab convenience, is a light wooden swath turner, somewhat in the form of a plough, for turning clover or corn in the swath, brought out by Messrs. Hunt, of Earl's Colne. A fore-carriage steerage drill, worked from behind, is an adaptation for which Messrs. Adams, of Northampton, deserve mention. A plough entirely different in appearance to the description of implement commonly associated with that name is a revolving disc for pulverising the soil, exhibited by Messrs. Hornsby and Sons, of Grantham, who have brought out also a new oil engine. There are many other new engines for oil or gas in the show-yard, as well as a great number of new sheaf-binders, differing more or less — generally —from those already in common use in this country. Messrs. Ransomes, of Ipswich, have new machines for planting and raising potatoes.