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PROGRESS IN MECHANIZED FARMING
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Research Carried Out by Oxford Agricultural Engineering Institute Has Proved of Great Value. Many Important Recent Innovations in Methods and Tractor Design
MECHANIZATION having made a firm start in cereal growing is spreading into other branches of farming, including livestock rearing, market gardening and fruit farming. The two essentials for progress in mechanization are the right type of a.grirnotor and the motor lorry. For success it is necessary that the correct piece of machinery should be employed, and for this reason re
search is of great value in showing what is of use and what is unsuitable.
Great work is being done in this connection by the Institute for Research in Agricultural Engineering, Oxford. Data is being provided at the moment by experiments with creeper-track machines and the consumption of power by different types of soil in the case of wheeled and track-laying machines.
D20 Information as to the life and cost of repairs to the latter type, some examples of which, it is stated, have been under observation for three years, has been collected and will shortly be published. The survey being carried out by the Institute is also beginning to throw light on the variations in fuel consumption and tractor power required by different types of soil. The power required to plough different soils varies from as little as 6 lb. per square inch to 20 lb.
or more. From test figures, it is reported, the power and fuel costs to plough any type of soil can be obtained.
When the survey of mechanized farms was started by the Institute, some years ago, it included all the farms where combine harvesters were employed. Now the number of such machines in use has increased too much for this to be possible. In the 1933 harvest 48 combine harvester S were in use doing remarkably good work.
Several examples of these perform ances are mentioned and some par ticulars given. On a farm in Hampshire belonging to Mr. L. R. Bomford 380 sacks of wheat were harvested in two days from about 40 acres of land. All the grain was passed through the dryer and weighed up.
The combine was a 12-ft. Massey Harris. It cut grain that yielded 200 sacks the first day, and had to be stopped early the second day because The barn accommodation was Made(plate.
On the farm of Mr. G. H. Neville, of yliellingore, Lincoln, 1,070 acres were harvested by three combines. One, a 10-ft. Holt, was in its fourth -year of work. It did 485 acres, had no breakdowns and cost nothing in repairs. The next largest acreage cut by a single machine, an International, was 4110 acres on Mr. Crouch's farm in Wiltshire. The crops were good and the ground was undulating to hilly. Nevertheless the straw was cut as low as is usual with the ordinary binder. The straw was gathered and ricked in nine days by one man with a big Farman agrimotor which kept six other me* on handling the straw, the agrimotor bringing up such big loads.
There were complaints on some farms, on which the combine was used, of grain being wasted. These complaints, it is stated, came from farms on which the machines were being employed for the first time, and in some cases they were well founded. There was no complaint where the farmer had previous experience of the machine.
The Combine Harvester.
The combine harvester is not, apparently, the only system of mechanization in the harvest field. In fact, Mr. J. E. Newman, of the Institute staff, reports that an indirect result of the introduction of the combine has been to set a number of people thinking of and trying other ways of power harvesting. The guiding principle is usually to thresh from the field, using the dryer to facilitate the work. This is an old principle, but was regarded as being practicable only in a dry season. The dryer overcomes this difficulty. In one case in 1932 threshing was carried on day and night Modernizing an Old Method.
The most serious rival to the combine is stated to be the old standard method, brought up to date by the use of the power binder, and tractor haulage of low-built trailers for conveying the grain to the rick. The trailers are loaded Canadian fashion without a man on the load to arrange the sheaves, these being thrown on until the load is conveniently high. Good loads can be put on the wide, low trailers, which are moved by tractors quickly from stook to stook, from field to rick, and back, making rapid work of the operation.
No great developments in mechani2.ed farming have been made during the past twelve months, but the principle is extending and research especially in the matter of details is highly valuable. One specially interesting effect of mechanical methods is noted. The machine urges on the worker to speed. This is summarized in a recent saying of Mr. E. D. ltVolton, "The tractor urges its driver on, but the influence of horses is to retard the ploughman. Speed to the tractor man is a joy—
to the horseman an effort." • The Institute, in "Farm and Machine," Volume I, just issued, discusses several new features in agrimotor development in 1933. First is the introduction of two machines smaller than any previously in current use, one of these, the Baby Farmall, being a smaller edition of the well-known International Farmall row-crop tractor. The other is the little Bristol on Roadless tracks. These machines are suitable for small mixed farms, market gardens and fruit plantations. In short they bring the agrimotor within the Teach of men whose holdings are too small for the larger machines to be used economically.
At the other end of the scale is the introduction of high-powered tracklaying machines fitted with oil engines. It is stated that for some time past there has been a theoretical demand for a machine of this type, on the ground that it will give the lowest possible running costs. Whether this theoretical demand will become a steady practical demand will depend upon how overhead charges are taken into • account in calculating overall running costs.
Pneumatic Versus Steel Tyres.
The most interesting innovation of the past year was the introduction of the pneumatic-tyred wheel, whilst different types of steel wheels continue to be produced. Observations are to the effect that all these wheels behave well in some circumstances and badly in others. As it is unlikely that there will ever be a single wheel suitable for all conditions, the advice is given that the wise farmer should provide himself with alternative wheels.
All these diverse developments show that the range of the agrimotor is gradually widening both in availability and usefulness.