Suffolk Horse Drag-Rake.-This rake is for the purpose of raking barley stubbles, &c., after the corn has been carried; and the rubbish may be cleaned from the tines simply by lifting the rake at the handles, when the teeth will come up together between the bars of the fixed frame, and leave the rubbish raked up neatly in the field. This tool may be considered an improved and more compact variety of the Norfolk horserake. The defects of both implements consist in the circumstance of the tines being rigidly fixed in a cross head, and therefore continually liable to be broken in uneven or stony land: they are therefore inferior to the lever horse-rakes.

Biddell's patent Corn- Gatherer.-This is an implement of novel construction and unquestionable utility. It will enable a company of harvestmen to begin loading when the corn is dry, without the usua delay, while corn is being raked into heaps, or, as they are called in Suffolk, "shocks," for pitching. In the busy time of harvest it saves manual labour, not only in gathering up swathes (without stopping the horse), but the corn, when so gathered, being compressed, may more readily be pitched, and a greater quantity be loaded upon a waggon, and got into the same barn-room, than if raked together in the usual

way.

Implements hitherto made for the above purpose have been difficult

to unload, even with the application of great strength to lift them over the gathered heaps. Biddell's corn-gatherer is for gathering one swathe of corn at a time, and has the advantage of leaving its load, at the will of the attendant, without being lifted up. One of three rows of tines alternately begins to gather the swathe as soon as the previous row has finished its heap, the size of which may be regulated as required for one or two forks full.

Wrought-iron Corn-Rick Stand, invented by the late John Springall, may be considered the most portable, convenient, and economical stand in use. It has of late years been very extensively adopted in Norfolk and Suffolk, and has always been found to preserve the stack from injury or destruction from vermin, it being impossible, uniess anything be left against the stack, for them to ascend. A further great advantage is secured by their use, by the facility they afford for securing crops in moist seasons, as the free current of air which is admitted under and through the stack soon hardens the crop after the rick is on the stand, rendering the sample of corn in all seasons much harder and drier.

They are made of different sizes, and may be taken to pieces and packed in a small compass for convenience of carriage, and present a much better and more sightly appearance than the stack-frames generally used throughout the country.

Threshing-Machines.

The machines now in general use in Suffolk and the eastern counties of England are, with few exceptions, portable; they are frequently the property of individuals, who, itinerating from farm to farm, thresh at a certain price per quarter, the farmer finding

horses, and, with the exception of the proprietor, who feeds the machine, the necessary complement of men. They are simply threshing-machines, having neither circular rakes nor fanners attached. The beaters-four, five, or six in number-are so placed round the drum that their beating edges radiate from the centre. These strike upon the straw, which is passed along a feeding-board placed at an inclination of about thirty degrees, tending to a point equidistant from the centre and upper part of the circumference of the drum. The concave, or screen, which surrounds the drum describes the third part of a circle, and is formed alternately of iron ribs and open wire-work in segments, so placed that its inner surface may be brought into near contact with the edges of the revolving beaters, and admitting of adjustment by screws to increase or diminish the distance. The usual plan is to place it within about an inch and a half space at the feeding part, and gradually to diminish the distance to an inch, or three-quarters of an inch, at the lower end, where the straw is delivered upon a fixed harp, or riddle, through which such part of the grain as is not driven through the wired part of the concave falls, while the straw is removed by forks.

The threshing part, commonly called the barn-work, occupies a space of 6 feet by 4 feet, and, together with the apparatus by which motion is communicated (which is made either for two, three, or four horse-power), may at pleasure be elevated upon a pair of wheels and axle, and thus removed by two horses.

With these machines, properly constructed, barley may be thoroughly threshed with as little damage as with the flail; and wheat straw need not be so broken as materially to diminish its usefulness, even for the purpose of thatching.

Where, however, as in the near neighbourhood of London and other large towns, the straw is valuable as an article of sale, and it is necessary that it should be tied in bundles or bolts, another variety of the threshing-machine, called a bolting-machine, may be advantageously used. The general character of this machine is not very dissimilar to that just described, with the exception that the drum and concave are made of sufficient width to admit the sheaf lengthwise of the straw, instead of presenting the ears foremost; the drum is not, as in the former case, a skeleton with beaters, but is a cylinder entirely cased with plate-iron, and forms what is called a whole drum; upon this the beaters, eight in number, are placed longitudinally: they are formed of small strips of iron, projecting not more than a quarter of an inch; the concave extends about three-fifths of the circumference of the drum, and the sheaf is introduced between two feeding rollers, as in the older machines, in order to prevent too great a quantity or too thick a wad choking and clogging the machine, which neces