may safely aver that it left a highly favourable impression upon the minds of the spectators of Mr. Mann's mechanical knowledge and ingenuity. The three great requisites in a reaping machine we conceive to be those of cutting, gathering, and laying. The first, we have no hesitation in saying, Mr. Mann has accomplished, at least so far as the principle is concerned; for, with a machine of great solidity and better quality of materials, we believe, from what we witnessed, the cutting would, unless under very unfavourable' circumstances, be almost unexceptionable, more especially were the ground prepared by rolling in the spring, so as to admit of the knives being set without any hesitation or fear of obstruction from stones, &c., which seemed to give some alarm. In gathering the corn together, we were also much pleased with the working of this machine; indeed, we could scarcely have imagined it possible that a mere piece of locomotive machinery could have accomplished so much. But that part of the process that admits of, and still requires much improvement, is that of laying the corn in regular swathes. Even in this department much ingenuity has been displayed; but it is one of the greatest difficulty, for almost every field of grain presents difficulties of a peculiar description in its accomplishment. Where the grain is standing perpendicular, or nearly so, the machine lays it down very well indeed at right angles with its line of direction; but when it is in operation against the inclination or slope of the growing corn, then the grain is laid with its head pointing from the line of direction, and vice versa when the machine is working towards the inclination of the crop. In either of the latter cases, it seems to us to be a matter of some difficulty to gather the corn with regularity and precision into proper sheaves, so as to make it fit for the threshing machine. This is undoubtedly a disadvantage, but it is by no means an insuperable one, and with Mr. Mann's practical knowledge of the machine, we have great expectations that he may, ere long, be able to remedy it. Upon the whole, although it must be obvious to every one in the field, that the machine, as exhibited, is not calculated to take the place of the ordinary modes of cutting corn, yet every one acquainted with the difficulties attending the discovery of such an implement must have been highly gratified at the very great progress which Mr. Mann has made towards completing the discovery."

It is proposed to raise a sufficient sum, by subscription, amongst the agriculturists of that district, so as to enable Mr. Mann to construct as complete a machine as he can, in order to give the invention a fair trial. We think that Mr. Mann has claims upon the agriculturists of his own county, Cumberland; and we should suggest the propriety of their at least equalling their Scottish neighbours in their patronage of his ingenious machine,

The Peasantry.-Mr. Loudon, in the "Gardener's Magazine" for October, 1833, has communicated Notes on Gardens and Country Seats visited by him' from July 27th to September 16th, during a tour through part of Middlesex, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent,-certainly an extensive range of country. The same acute and experienced observer passed, he says, deliberately through the same tract of country in 1812 and 1813. As that is precisely the period when, according to our advocates of depreciation, the condition of the labouring classes was most flourishing, it is worth while to hear what Mr. Loudon says with regard to those appearances from which the condition of the people may be inferred at the two periods. He says, comparing the tract of country as it is now with what it was then, we have found a decided improvement in the cottage gardens, we may say everywhere, by the more frequent appearance of flowers in them, and by the appearance of the China rose trained against the walls. The cottage dwellings are on the whole not worse; and on some estates they are a good deal improved. Many cottages, which before had no gardens, have now considerable portions of ground added to them; unfortunately, not

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generally adjoining the cottage, but in some neighbouring field; but still there is now hardly a cottage which has not ground attached to it in some way or other. Here and there, throughout the, country, we observed labourers' cottages of a superior description, erected or erecting, with platforms or terraces round them, and lofty ornamental chimney-tops, with ornamental barge-boards, pendants, and pinnacles. We think we may fairly trace the origin of these to the circulation of an Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture,' a book which, we are happy to say, has been well received everywhere, and which, we trust, will ere long produce a visible good in every part of the island."

The disposition to ornament may be taken as a tolerable criterion of comfort; because the ornamental follows, but does not precede the attainment of the necessary. Whenever the labouring people of a country are ragged and dirty, and live in vile huts, we may safely put them down as miserably poor. We are, therefore, much gratified to hear from such good authority that the visible signs of thriving of the labouring people, in the tract of country of England in which the poor-laws are supposed to have been most abused, are everywhere manifest.

But while the cottages are improving, according to Mr. Loudon, the mansions are going to decay. The cry of the Jacobins was, war to the palaces, and peace to the cottages. In England, war has been declared to the palaces, but it is a war of finance. But let us hear what Mr. Loudon says on this subject:- "With respect to gardens and country-seats, we may say that, on the whole, we never saw them in a state of worse keeping. Generally speaking, the more extensive the park and gardens, the worse they are kept. We scarcely recollect above one or two noblemen's places highly kept; and even one of these will no longer be an exception to the general rule, since pecuniary difficulties have occasioned eleven garden labourers to be discharged from it at once. The noblest place in Britain,' perhaps in Europe-Blenheim-is going rapidly to decay. Before entering the great gates at Woodstock, the stranger sees two trees (an ash and a sycamore), each four feet or five feet high, growing out of crevices of the stone piers. When the gates are opened, he observes half the lake turned into a morass, covered with rushes. Advancing to the house, he finds part of the architrave over the eastern gateway fallen down; and if he goes as far as the cascade, he will find that the head, or dam, is no longer in a state to retain water, and that, of course, the lake is not so full as it ought to be, by five or six feet. Almost the only highly-kept gardens which we saw were those of small proprietors, professional men, merchants, or bankers."

Mr. Loudon endeavours to remove apprehension from the minds of gardeners on account of this falling off in the circumstances of the high aristocracy. "Let not (he says) this view of the decay of noblemen's gardens induce gardeners in want of places to despair. Every gardener who has seen much service knows that a situation under a rich tradesman, merchant, or small landed proprietor, is productive of far more comfort to him than one under a nobleman, where so many intermediate persons, come in between him and his employer, that he is at all times liable to misrepresentation, and to be discharged without even an opportunity of explanation. As far as we have observed, the pay given to their head gardeners by men who are themselves in business is as great as, in many instances greater than, that given by noblemen. As the country goes on improving, the small places will greatly increase, and with them a taste for gardening, and situations for first-rate gardeners."

To account for the great changes that are evidently in progress, it should be observed, that men possessing landed property, who have large families, must provide for those families, and mortgage their properties; mortgages are seldom or never redeemed from rents; and when the properties come into the market, men who have realized money in trade invest their capital

in the purchase of land. The church, the colonies, the army, and the navy, have hitherto, in some degree, prevented the rule from operating with full force on the aristocracy. Still all the care taken to give permanency to any order will in the end be found unavailing. Men who live on rents, and keep up mansions, do not usually save money. Provision for children cannot always be obtained from the state; then come mortgages, and the decay of mansions and gardens. Now that a Reformed Parliament gives to the middle classes a control over the finances of the country, which must, of course, lead to reduced expenditure at home and abroad, the difficulties of the already deeply encumbered aristocracy must rapidly augment.

William Gall, wright in Arbroath, has constructed a pair of self-acting fanners, which, without the aid of man, sift wheat, corn, &c. The simplicity of the invention is astonishing. By a funnel of sheet iron, the wheat descends upon an iron wheel full of brackets; the wheel is so nicely balanced, that the moment the wheat falls, the wheel revolves and throws the wheat into a pair of fanners on the flat below. On the outside of the iron wheel is a wooden one, and over it is a belt attached to the fly-wheel of the fanners which impels them; and so long as a particle of wheat is left, the machine moves and throws it out.

USEFUL ARTS.

Witty's Improved Stoves.-No department of the economy of life in England more justly excites the surprise of our scientific northern continental neighbours, than the very absurd and unphilosophical practices so long adhered to, with the most pertinacious prejudice, in the economy and regulation of fuel; and perhaps there is none which has less kept pace with the spirit of the modern developments of science and their application to the arts of life, although dependent altogether on the simplest principles of chemical philosophy, and might be most materially improved by the slightest philosophical consideration. In the ordinary construction of fireplaces, the sole heat derived therefrom is by radiation, and the only improvements which have latterly taken place are those which have been suggested to extend the radiating surface-the principles adopted as well in the construction of ordinary stoves as in the various plans proposed for heating large buildings by the circulation of hot water, &c.

In addition to the vast loss of heat in these arrangements, by its passing up the chimney in the form of heated air, another immense objection is in the large quantity of carbonaceous and combustible matter which escapes through the same channel and is entirely lost. This fact is alone sufficiently demonstrative of the very unphilosophical mode by which the combustion is effected, this loss necessarily resulting from the first application of heat, when the whole of the volatile matters are separated. A greater quantity of the fuel is also volatilized and consumed by the vast quantity of air having access to it in a state of ignition, and by which the combustion is too greatly accelerated. Whilst all these sources of loss are in operation, the only advantage derived is in the small extent and radiating surface presented by the confined surface of the stove to an equally limited portion of the room. To use a homely description of foreigners, the trunk may be considered to be exposed to the torrid, and the extremities of the body, at the same time, to the cold of the frigid zones.

All the objections attendant upon the ordinary modes of regulating heat are obviated in the very sound construction of Witty's stoves, the principles of the construction being founded upon the most philosophical attention to the economy of fuel, both in its perfect combustion and the distribution of the heat. The former great loss of the volatile parts of the fuel, necessarily separated by the first application of heat, is prevented by the gradual com

bustion. The coal, when first introduced into the furnace, undergoes a distillatory process, by which the whole of the volatile gaseous matters are separated, which are carried over and consumed in the furnace, along with the other parts there in a state of active ignition. This second portion, which is by this distillatory process converted into coke, is pushed down in the inelined plane on to the fire, when this requires replenishing; and thus, by the simultaneous combustion of the first and last products of the destructive distillation of the coal, a perfect fire is kept up, more powerful than can be obtained by the ordinary mode of combustion. By a peculiar arrangement, the air for the support of combustion is also limited in the supply, and also, previously treated before coming in contact with the burning surface, a circumstance which prevents combustion being retarded, as it necessarily is by the contact of a large and cold surface of air.

The other valuable arrangements of these furnaces consist in the means whereby the heat is equally distributed to all parts of the building, and this, to the lower parts, is effected by highly polished metallic plates placed angularly in front of the fire, and by which a large quantity of heat is radiated to a considerable distance. A large quantity of heated air is also diffused into the upper parts of the room, by passing through an outer chamber which surrounds the furnace, and which, from the very large extent of surface and rapid circulation of the air, is not liable to some of the objections of warming rooms by heated air-that the atmospheric air becomes partially de-oxidated, and is thus rendered less fitted for respiration. The whole of the mechanical arrangements, and the construction of the stoves, are executed in very good and finished taste; and many testimonials of their superiority in heating large buildings, conservatories, pineries, halls, churches, &c., have sufficiently proved the superiority of this principle, as might be anticipated from the very philosophical arrangements by which the combustion, as well as the distribution of heat, is effected; and for chemical manufactories, as well as for every purpose to which heat is applied, these stoves may be used with great economy and advantage. These particulars we have collected from different stoves on this principle, which we have seen in operation at the Museum of National Manufactures, Leicester-square.

Museum of National Manufactures.-Although the influence which the different competitive exhibitions of the fine arts have possessed upon its refinement has been most practically acknowledged by their rapid advancement in this country within the last quarter of a century, during which period the British School of Art has been formed, the want of some institution which should possess an equally fostering influence upon the liberal arts has long been felt. Without it, the country has remained wholly destitute of a correct standard of taste; artists and manufacturers, along with the public, have found great difficulty in becoming acquainted with the maximum of superiority, and which, in the ordinary routine of commercial intercourse, can only be made known by the conflicting rivalry of the producers. Whilst a knowledge of merit could only be obtained through so tortuous a route, the meritorious artist has been wholly abandoned to the capricious contingencies of trade, his deserts have been too often treated with neglect, and his energies have been lost by repinement in unmerited obscurity, in his unavailing attempts to counteract the rivalry of less meritorious though more fortunate producers.

Under such a system, and without the aid accorded by those periodical exhibitions of the useful arts, the utility of which has been amply acknowledged by the support which is given to them by the different continental governments of France, Russia, Austria, and even Spain, always so late in the march of improvement, the loss to consumers has been incalculable, whilst it has in many cases led to adherence in, or the fosterment of a bad and capricious taste. Such must always be the case in a mere competitive community, for although the appeal to public opinion is in every case bene

ficial to advancement in the arts, the doors to that tribunal must be rendered the most easy of access. For want of such a medium to public notice, the claims of many of the most valuable inventions have been lost to the world, and have become injurious or destructive to their proprietors, whilst the most absurd practices, in other cases, are adhered to, or those which are blazed forth with all the guilty impudence of sophistry or puff, usurp the place of the more deserving efforts of the man of genius. Such an establishment must necessarily produce the most genial influence: it enables the consumer to judge between the meritorious and meretricious in every department of art, on those subjects in which his comforts are most directly concerned; and, whilst making the artist acquainted with the highest and most complete and successful efforts of his art, stimulates him to better execution, and to a wholesome rivalry at equality or superiority.

Whilst such an establishment creates an interest by the exhibition of every thing valuable for purposes of utility, comfort, luxury, and ornament, it displays a vast animated pictorial representation of the mental faculties in their varied developements. Whilst it is a panorama of the present state of every thing new and improved in every branch of intelligence and industry to which the mind of man can devote its exercise, it is a perfect school of art in which to initiaté the young, and familiarize them with every branch of manufacturing enterprise, and thus may often excite native genius to the developement of its latent powers, which, without such an opportunity, would never have been stimulated into being. In a great manufacturing community, where the native resources of the country have been augmented ten thousand times by the energy of her artizans and manufacturers, no argument need be adduced further in support of such an institution, than that whatever creates an identity and reciprocity between the feelings of the producers and the consumer must necessarily be productive of great national good.

The object of the Museum of National Manufactures (a continuation of the National Repository at Charing Cross) is to present to public notice specimens of superior workmanship in the different branches of manufacturing industry, with models of the machinery by which these results are produced. Every article admitted into the collection is distinguished from the ordinary productions of the same class, either by some improvement or superiority of fabric; or by some novelty of material, style, design, or mode of production; or by ingenuity of contrivance, or extended usefulness of application; or, finally, by some marked excellence of execution, indicative of more than ordinary skill, taste, assiduity, or dexterity of the workman. The catalogue of this, the first annual exhibition, comprises three hundred and twenty-six articles, being ninety-four more than in the last collection of the National Repository, and, from the support which it has received from the manufacturing public, there can be little doubt of its attaining a high station in public estimation, and meeting with an adequate degree of public patronage. В.

NEW PATENTS.

To William Godfrey Kneller, of Mitcham, in the county of Surrey, chemist, for his invention of certain improvements in evaporation. Sealed 24th of August-six months for enrolment.

To Richard Else, of the city of Bath, gen. tleman, for certain improvements in drying malt. Sept. 7-two months.

To William Church, of Heywood House, Bordeslee Green, near Birmingham, in the county of Warwick, gentleman, for certain improvements in machinery or apparatus to be employed in the transportation of goods or

passengers, parts of which said improvement are also applicable to the ordinary purposes of steam-engines. Sept. 7-six months.

To Isaac Dodds, of Horseley Iron Works, in the parish of Tipton, in the county of Stafford, engineer, for an improved combination of materials, and method of manufacturing valves for steam-engines, or steam apparatus, or for any other fluid, or gas, or in any other situation wherein valves or sluices may be used. Sept. 14-six months.

To John Heathcoat, of Tiverton, in the county of Devon, lace-manufacturer, for his