Direct Haulage or Cable Ploughing?
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With Special Reference to the Requirements of British Farmers.
By Geo. W. Watson, M.I.Mech.E., I once heard the question asked" what dis the hardest thing to learn on a farm," and promptly came the answer from an -old North Riding farmer, "to get up at four o'clock in the morning." In past years early rising and late working were absolutely necessary during certain seasons of the year, because, in this country, one can never rely upon weather conditions remaining settled for any length of time. Animals, as well as human beings, have a limited capacity for work, and that capacity cannot long be maintained at its maximum, or physical breakdown will ensue, and so long as a farmer relies entirely upon manual or animal labour so long will he fail to realize the best results on his farm, Day by day numbers of men are deserting the country for the hustle of town life, and the more marked this depopulation of our agricultural districts becomes the more urgent becomes the need for the British farmer to replace, or at least supplement, animal and manual labour by means of mechanical contrivances.
The mechanical engineer has done much for the farmer in the past., and he is prepared to do even more ; he realizes that farming is as much an engineering proposition as was the construction of the Forth Bridge. The chief barrier to progress, however, is the British farmer himself : he is a hard-headed individual, and takes a lot of convincing, but when once convinced he sets about his task determined to excel. The farmers in our Colonies, in the Argentine. Russia, Roumania, and other countries, are more ready to adopt new methods than are the farmers at home, but one must bear in mind that their conditions are entirely -different from those prevailing in these islands. Abroad, land is cheap, and the problem for the farmer there is " how many acres can I cultivatk. per annum? " whilst, at home, the farmer asks himself " how much can I make the land yield per acre? " I venture to assert that in no other country is the yield per acre so heavy as in England. The need for machinery on home farms has not been se great in the past as it was abroad, but with constantly altering conditions of labour it is becoming an economic necessity.
Motor Ploughing Means Higher Efficiency.
This is the age of the motor, and whether steam or petrol be employed as the prime mover the results are much the same: more efficient tillage of the land; greater capacity for week with reduced call for manual effort ; more reliable and uniform results, and better and more economical production of crops.
Small motors, for pumping purposes, driving chaff cutters, pulping machines, etc., may now be obtained in variety to meet almost any requirement, and a large number of home farina possesses at least one motor for the purpose named, but for the ploughing of the land, which is the most expensive operation on the farm, animal traction, unfortunately, is still exclusively employed on a large majority of home farms. This neglect of mechanical means of ploughing is regrettable, especially as there are now available so many efficient machines built and offered by English makers. No serious-minded farmer ever attempts hie threshing by means of animal labour ; why, therefore, should he rufase mechanical aid at, the plough! The. reason probably is that his early experiences with cable ploughing convinced him that the majority of our fields are far too small to make the system commercially successful ; the costly and lengthy preparations for work on the field, which are often difficult cf access for the ponderous ploughing machines and cable tackle, could not be off-set by speedy ploughing for many hours on end.
It is not possible for me to give any definite figures for the cost of cable
ploughing as compared with other mechanical means; so much depends upon the field of operations and-its relation to the base of supplies for both fuel and water. I believe, however, that contractors usually charge about 7a. 6d. an acre for cable ploughing, and the farmer must provide, and transport to the field at his own expense, all the water and fool required, the total cost being thus brought up in some cases to as high as lis, per acre, and, of course, a cable-plough contractor will not take on any job that is not likely to yield a good profit ; cons*, quently, his services are not requisi. tioned except for fields of about 50 acres or more.
Where Direct Haulage Scores over Cable Ploughing.
For small fields, as I have already stated, horses are still almost exclusively employed, and as horses cannot possibly work on the land during such weather conditions as frequently prevail in this country there comes a day when almost superhuman efforts are needed to get the land tilled in time to avoid a barren season. Unfortunately for him, at such times the farmer cannot hire extra horses and men from his neighbours, because the same conditions of urgency prevail throughout the district. As his owii horses are insufficient to complete th.; work efficiently, he may be tempted to plough less deeply, to neglect crossploughing even where such an operation is most desirable, and generally to rush the work, the result being that the ensuing crops are poor.
It is under such conditions as those I have outlined that the small tractor, be it driven by steam or oil, can be of the greatest service to the farmer. It is always ready, and always willing, if needs be, to work 24 hours a day ; all it asks is sufficient fuel, water and oil for its needs, careful and regular attention to the adjustment of its wearindparts, and an annual overhaul. It, does not need anyone to "sit up " all night with it when it is " sick," and needs no " bedding down" after a day's work, but may be left all night on the field of operations, covered merely by a tarpaulin, ready for the resumption of work next day. The need for getting up at 4 a.m. no longer exists.
The Objections to Tractor Weight No Longer Serious.
The English farmer's rooted objection to direct-haulage ploughing with tractors is his fear of the land's being damaged by the engine's running over it, but he need now have no fears in this respect, because the weights are considerably lower than those of the machines which first essayed direct-haulage ploughing, and, also, the widths of the wheels have been very greatly increased. In the case of the agricultural tractor built by Mann's Patent Steam Cart and Wagon Co., Ltd., of Leeds, the total weight of the machine is distributed over a strip of land 48 in. in width, the unit of pressure being so low that this engine may safely travel over newly-ploughed land without doing serious damage. One of these tractors is capable of pulling a fourfurrow plough through strong land, turning over about six acres per working day of nine hours, and consuming approximately one cwt. of ordinary Yorkshire coal per acre.
Mr. John Ellis, of Park Farm, Rise, in Holderness, who owns a Mann agricultural tractor, put the machine to work on his farm during the very dry weather of a few weeks back, his land at that time being as hard and dry as cement., and with huge clods freely distributed; under such conditions he succeeded in obtaining a good tilth for sowing oats. The tractor pulled a set of heavily-weighted chisel harrows, and the widening rings of the hind wheels crushed the clods. Following the chisel harrow was a Cam• bridge roller; a set of light harrows, and a seed drill, all the operations being conducted simultaneously. In this way Mr. Ellis was able to sow 56 acres of oats in one week upon land which was absolutely impossible for horses.
Costs Per Acre for Direct-haulage Ploughing with Steam Tractors.
It is impossible to give any hard and fast costs for direct-haulage ploughing, either for steam or petrol tractors, because it varies so greatly with the nature of the soil, the lie of the land, the nearness of the field to supplies of fuel and water, and ninny other factors, but the published results of the Baldock carried out by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, in August, 1910, may be taken as an indication of what can be done in this country. Those results show that all three of the competing steam tractors wore capable of ploughing land at a cost below 4s, per acre. The three machines named were built by Mann's Patent Steam Cart and Wagon Co., Ltd., J. and H. isIcLaren, Ltd., and Wallis and Steevens, Ltd., of Basingstoke. The ploughs used in those trials were of the three-furrow pattern, and the judges' report contained the statement that " the steam tractors could all have ploughed more furrows at about the same pace they moved the threefurrow ploughs.
Richard Garrett and Sens, Ltd.. of Leiston, has also put up some excellent ploughing records with its steam trac
tors, and in one test with a Garrett superheated steam tractor, which I personally observed and checked, the fuel cost per acre worked out at 8.67d., as against the average 13.6d. per acre obtained in the Baldock trials.
Direct-haulage Ploughing with Oil Tractors, When one compares the cost of cable ploughing alongside figures obtained abroad for high power oil tractors the balance in favour of direct-haulage ploughing is even more marked than the examples given above, but as I am writing this primarily for the benefit of home farmers I will not here enter into details of such costs. In this country, however, it has been demonstrated beyond all doubt that land may be ploughed by the aid of oil tractors at an inclusive cost of under 4s. per acre, even by such small machines as the Ivel and the 15 h.p. Saunderson. The Daimler Co. claimsto be able to plough 10 acres of "two-horse land" per day with one of its 36 h.p. agricultural oil tractors at a cost of 3s. 7d. per acre; whilst Marshall's of Gainsborough, and Saunderson and Gifkins both record lower costs per acre.
As long ago as November, 1907, I made a 24-hour non-stop test with a 30 h.p. Marshall oil tractor hauling a sixfurrow, 10 in. plough, cutting to a depth of about 6 in. into thick stubble; I carefully recorded every item of expenditure, and after making due allowance for increase on capital outlay, depreciation, overhead charges, and an estimated average charge for repairs, the cost per acre worked out at 3s. id., and the rate of ploughing was just under one acre per hour. Such results, I am confident, may at any time be repeated, but it must be noted that this was practically a fullload test, and that full-load conditions do not always prevail; more frequently a tractor is called upon to work at about three-quarter load.
A Tractor has an Infinite Variety of Uses.
The relative capacities for endurance of the motor and the horse are perhaps among the most important considerations for the farmer. He may work his motor at the plough as long and as hard as he choose, but at the end of the work the motor is quite ready and capable of doing any other class of work for as long as necessary.
In this article, so far, I have dealt only with matters concerning home farmers, but it may interest them to know what is being done in Canada and other parts of the western hemisphere. As an example. I cannot do better than quote a communication I recently received from a friend in Canada. He refers to the work dons by a 38 h.p. American-made machine of a type that could not long hold its own against a good English make. My friend, in relating to me what he had witnessed while on a prolonged visit to the great wheat-growing country, writes :—" In a vast field of wheat. shonlder high, an engine was circling the field and pulling four binders in its train, each cutting and binding a swath 8 ft. in width at a rapid walking speed. Only once during 12 hours did a cessation of the insistent popping of the exhaust indicate a stoppage of the motor, and that was when nne of the binders failed to tie the bundles properly when a particularly heavy patch of wheat was entered. The large fields, 400 acres in extent, allowed long runs .between turns,
and the outfit harvested an average of 100 acres a day. When the harvest was over, a gang plough, which turned eight furrows at a time, was substituted for the binder, and ploughing was commenced in the next field. Each day the tractor with its eight ploughs turned over between 20 to 30 acres of ground to a depth of 9 in. to 10 in. "Soon the wheat was ready for threshing, and the motor was again called into play. This time the tractor hauled the threshing machine from one field to another and then operated the separator, and from 1000 to 1500 bushels of wheat was handled in a day.
"In addition to its services in harvesting, ploughing and threshing, the oil tractor is put to many other uses, such as planting, drilling, discing and harrowing, and at everyone of these jobs it has proved better than horse-operated machines. When harvesting was in progress the four binders were hitched one behind the other in such a way that each following binder cut a swath just inside of the 8 ft. width cut by its leader.
"When engaged on hauling its eight ploughs and turning over an average of 20 acres a day for the season, this tractor required 50 gallons of petrol, costing 25 cents a gallon, and four gallons of oil, costing 60 cents a gallon. The labour cost is made up of engineer's wages at 3a dollars a day, and ploughmen's wages at 3 dollars a day. On an investment of 3800 dollars the interest at 6 per cent, is about 84 cents per day, and the depreciation and total cost of repairs, which although they have been very small for the season's working have been assumed to amount to 15 per cent, per annum on the capital cost, which works out at 1.65 dollar per day. This makes a total cost of 30idollars a day for ploughing, or just over l dollar an acre. " The cost of horse haulage for farm operations in this district is not so easy to determine as that of mechanical haulage, and in making an estimate of the cost of operating with horses it is scaroely pos. sible to get the exact expense, because horses must be fed and cared for during idle periods in order that they may be fit for services when the time for profitmaking labour arrives. It is reckoned here that the feed alone for the average farm horse costs 90 dollars a year, and there are always a number of weeks in the year in which the animal is of no service. The cost accounts have shown that for each day of profit-making work on the farm approximately 2+ dollars have been expended on horse or mule. In order to plough 20 acres a day by horses, as is done by the tractor, it would require eight teams and eight men. The 16 horses, therefore, at 2+ dollars a day each would represent a total cost of 36 dollars, and as the drivers each get about two dollars a day the cost for ploughing 20 acres would be 52 dollars, or 2.06 dollars an acre, which is very much higher than with the tractor.
" This tractor will do the work of 30 fresh-to-the-minute draught horses at about + the cost, and will cut down the expenditure on hired labour on the farm by two-thirds. It will break from 20 to 40 acres a day ; plough from 25 to 50 acres of stubble ; drill and harrow simultaneously from 100 to 150 acres; double disc between 60 and 75 acres ; harvest from 100 to 120 acres of wheat a day, or thresh 1400 to 2500 bushels of wheat."
The farm motor to-day is not a luxury ; to-morrow it will be a necessity, and the farmer who can acquire one will have a big lead over his less-go-ahead brethren.