Barnard, Bishop, and Barnard's Friction Drive

THE ENGINEER.                    DEC. 11, 1863.

THE SMITHFIELD CLUB SHOW.

The display of implements is much the same as usual, with the addition of one or two novelties here and there. Among these is certainly the lawn-mower exhibited by Messrs. Barnard, Bishop, and Barnard, of Norwich. By means of a loose ring of cast iron, hooped with India-rubber, and placed between the driving wheel and knife wheel, the latter is turned in going forward, and is kept at rest in drawing the implement backward. This is effected by the position (which is self-assumed) of the India-rubber covered ring, its own centre, when driving the knife wheel by friction being above the straight line which would connect the centres of the knife wheel and driving wheel. In drawing back the implement, the friction ring is rolled out of the position in which only it can bite the knife wheel. The three wheels are covered in by a casing, and the whole arrangement is perhaps the neatest and best of its kind which can be devised.

The general impression left upon the mind of an engineer who has visited a series of the Smithfield Club shows, as well as those of the Royal Agricultural Society, is that agricultural machinery is being rapidly improved, both in plan or mechanical arrangement, and in workmanship. There is a nearer and nearer approach to that class of work which prevails in locomotive factories, and in the work- shops of the leading mechanical engineers. It is gratifying to see this improvement, which speaks as much for the farmer as it does for the makers. It affords, when we consider the extent to which machinery and improved implements are now employed upon farms, a convincing proof that one of the most promising fields to which the engineer can now turn his attention is the arable soil of England the source from which so much of our national wealth is already drawn.