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The Tractor the Key to Farming Prosperity

13th December 1935
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Page 56, 13th December 1935 — The Tractor the Key to Farming Prosperity
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THE agrimotor and the lorry now form the mainspring of the agricultural industry. The lorry in transport and the tractor on the land hold the key to British farm prosperity. Farmers no longer need convincing of the , value of the agrimotor. The exigencies of the times and the production of reliable machines have done all that was needed to establish the tractor firmly in its rightful place on the land.

Apart from mechanization, which has made great strides in -this country

during the past few years, the increase in the efficiency and flexibility of the agrimotor has coincided with an advance in power farming generally. In other words, the agrimotor has become the main motor power for land work.

Its serious introduction has also 2338 coincided with the approach of a better understanding of town and country interests, with the result, as Mr. Henry Ford says, that great new markets will be opened up for agriculture. In future agriculture will support industry more than it has done in the past, and in clustry will bring greater prosperity to agriculture.

The demand for good-quality British produce cannot be met by haphazard methods. Only up-to-date equipment can keep the producer abreast of the times. On every hand we encounter this increasing demand for quality in corn, roots, vegetables, fruit and every farm commodity.

It is no wonder that mechanization and power farming are making great progress. It is safe to say that, without power, no farmer can hope to make his holding pay, and, in usefulness, there is no power unit to equal the agrimotor.

There is a wide range of machines available. The general-purpose fourwheeled outfit is the more popular type, because of its suitability for fulfilling the requirements of the mixed farm, of which there are many in this country. For more specialized work bigger and more powerful machines, of both the wheeled and the track-laying types, are employed.

The wheeled medium-powered agrimotor is the more popular, not only because it meets adequately the needs of the largest number of farms, hut also because it is comparatively inexpensive to buy. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that, whilst the popular type of agrimotor may represent low capital outlay, the tracklaying model is the more efficient for hard work and on heavy soils, for specialized farming, where a machine is continually employed on one kind of work, and where work can be arranged to meet the power of the machine on full load.

The demand for the track-layer is proof of how much this class of machine is coming into favour. At one time considerable trouble was experienced in keeping the tracks in order. Since then so much progress has been made in meeting the difficulties that they no longer exist.

Paraffin-engined agrimotors have hitherto found most favour, but the oilenginerl machine is now making headway particularly for heavy work. The latter type is light in running costs, but is much higher in capital outlay. Rotary tillage, of which we may exp,ect to see more in the future, introduces a new class of machine. The types range from the 5 h.p. and 10 h.p. market-garden rototillers produced by Geo. Monro, Ltd., to the big Fowler gyrotillers, varying from 30 h.p. to 170 h.p. There is also a range of rotary-tillage machines, for arable and grass land, manufactured for operation by the power take-off of the ordinary agrirnotor.

There is much to be said for rotary tillage, because it eliminates so many intervening operations between ploughing and planting. Sc far, Rothamstecl experiments support it, and further investigations are in progress which aim at disccivering the best methods of utilizing everyadvantage offered by the system.

One need not emphasize the Work which the agrimotor does on the farm. Its suitability ta ploughing and culti vating is beyond question. Better_ cultivation, and therefore better crops, are the result.

What has brought it so much into favour is not only its success with arable work, but its capacity for performing every, task on the farm hitherto carried out by horses, including haulage (with proper wheel equipment); harvesting hay, corn and roots; cultivating growing crops; and driving stationary machinery.

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People: Henry Ford

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