REAPER AND BINDER TRIAL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 878, 7 February 1879, Page 2 (Supplement)

REAPER AND BINDER TRIAL.

(to the editor of THE >"E\v 2 Eai AGRICULTURIST.) Sir, —Everyone must have notic-tri regret the fact that, though the prizeiool by the North Otago Agricultural atMil toral Association for competition bv * " and binders were exceedingly liberal two machines came forward, and that quently the trial was a comparative iV? 1 1 do not mean to say that the trial failure as regards the working of themJ? 1 on the ground, far from it; but when! v money is given as prizes for any compel; it is only reasonable to expect that ti shall be some more tangible good oW 1 from it than the mere watching of R . * between a couple of rivals. Therc o,lt< surely have been something wrong *' where when M'Cormick's and Reid* 05 Gray's machines were the only otle * could be induced to compete. It is J Messrs. Hassell, Son, & Co. intended se* one of Gammon and Deering's Harvest?' to the trial, but were prevented from ing out their determination owing t machine not arriving in time. ]i U ( J were the Wood and the Osborne ? The plenty of these machines in the countrv •' on the occasion of the late trial thcv' ! conspicuous by their absence, the ill the Wood alleging that his reasons fc entering the competition were that lajt' 1 the Wood did not receive fair play, ail / he objected to the mode of arriving at cision—that of the votes of farmers <», ground. I do not care to discus, cogency of these reasons, but I must cert,; say that I do not think the Committer.! Association should, under these ck stances, give prizes for reaper and £ trials, unless some provision is machines by three makers must co% no prize will be awarded. As it is, thf<! simply resolve themselves into an ex*' advertising medium for the one o t machines that come forward, and farmers—those interested in the detetuc of the merits of the different machit leave the ground scarcely one whit thei on the subject for the settling of whiel are ostensfbly brought together. Asu sent conducted, these trials only rctj bickerings and heartburnings, witlionj practical good being arrived at, anc sooner they are abolished the better. ] my word for it, if the Society were to J mine not to institute these trials, thci themselves would take every means oij ing to farmers what their machine caxiable of doing, and just asmuchinfj tion would be obtained as under the* arrangement, while the saved the trouble attending the getting trials, and avoid the necessity tor gitj some particular machine the right fc claim itself the Seciety's prize-taker though there be actually no oompetitit I am, etc.,