First, a word as to the history of crop-driers. The
first British patent was taken out in the 'sixties. Twenty years later Mr. Martin Sutton offered £100 for the best design. Two years ago, after many trials, a portable crop-drier was exhibited in action at the Royal Show at Chester, and last year it perambulated the country. A good many were manu- factured and high hopes were entertained that a really prac- tical and economic method had been found of negativing the handicap of weather. This crop-drier was produced from Oxford University, which had recently undertaken, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, the subject of farm machinery, I believe that the wife of the chief inventor made some of the more fertile suggestions. For myself, I saw one considerable demonstration on an Oxfordshire farm, and thought it par- tially, though only partially, successful. Some later failures, as farmers judged them, diminished confidence in any system of crop-drying.
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