LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
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March Dust. and April Showers. Unsatisfactory Agrimotors.
THERE APPEARS to be no question as to the predominance of the British industry so far as the commercial vehicle is concerned, whilst the steam wagon and tractor are types which we ,alone produce. We have 'adapted the industrial type of machine to a hundred and one different uses, and the many new forms of employment discovered for it during the' war will, no doubt, result in still more widespread adaptation for civilian purposes. It has, for a number of years past, however, appeired to me that we have seriously neglected the possibilities of development in the important direction of the sanitary services.
I refer particularly to the sweeping and watering cart, sewage collection wagons and so on, father than to the not uncommon "dust cart." Only one or two British manufacturers have ever very seriously taken this class of work into account. Amongst them I recall Green's of Leeds and, of course, the Lacre Co. Isolated efforts have also been recorded by other concerns, but, if I mistake not, they have not amounted to a great deal of practical achievement. Surely the motor, road sweeper and the watering and spraying wagon, to name only two types, would be saleable in very considerable numbers, if thoroughly approved designs had been put into production. It is no secret that American builders are getting quite buy in this direction, and not a few British municipal authorities are being pressed to acquire models of transatlantic origin. French manufacturers, too, have, for a long time past, foreseen the eventual demand for motor sweepers and watering appliances, and they have also developed quite s,pecial models for dealing with the cesspool service which is still necessary in many French communities. The de Dion sweeper, m echelon of three machines, was, at any rate before the war, a continual source of amusement and interest to idlers in the Champs Elysees and the main boule vards in Paris.
A first-class design, carried out with British thoroughness, I am convinced would be a very promising special line of manufacture for some motor building concerns whose plans are at present a little confused by the evidence of exceptionally keen competition, in the near future, whether the product be commercial vehicles or touring cars. We have not, as yet, taken the motor sweeper very seriously over here, any more than we have the agrimotor, as a matter of fact. If, in effect, we continue this neglect any further we shall inevitably witness the scooping of a number of municipal orders by American and French concerns. There is a very nice opening in this matter for a medium-sized organization on the look out for some speciality rather than for production of some type such as the four-tonne: or the twotonner which is likely to be available to purchasers in very large numbers before many moons have waxed and waned.
I can quite understand the desire on the part of a manufacturer to specialize rather than merely to produce in quantities. The latter is the line of thought of the American manufacturer, the former that of the Britisher, who has always had the world-wide reputa tion for building soundly and well. So although I, for one, have asked for quantity production, I only ask for it where the article and the demand for it both lend themselves to quantity production. There is, and always will be, scope for the manufacturer who specializes and caters for a limited but none the less profitable market.
Unsatisfactory Agrimotors.
There is little use in attempting to conceal the fact that all is not quite so well with the agricultural tractor side of the industry as one would think might be and as indeed it ought to be. We are well past that very frantic period when we were all set digging for dear life, when every patch of grass land —and even land that had never even supported the burden of grass—was suspect. It is as well that there is no longer the need to acquire any contraption hustled into this stricken country under the import classification of agricultural tractor, without any regard to its practicability, its design, its record or the material of which it was constructed. Tractors want a great deal of selling here now. And, on the whole, is it to be wondered at?
Only a few months ago we read of one of a muchboomed make of American tractor overturning and pinning the unfortunate driver, underneath until he was dead—an all too frequent accident that should not have been allowed to recur. Only a few days ago we personally heard from the lips of a prominent provincial agent his tale of woe of the innumerable mechanical breakdowns and failures that the majority of tractor types constantly presented, and learned of a shopful of machines waiting expensive repairs. Here and there, one recalls types that are a deal better, but surely there are _few enough that are at all near to mechanical perfection,' that are, in a few words, the Machines for the job.
Is not a very great deal to cllo with this present state of affairs the fact that, so far, it has proved very difficult to find a practical designer who is also a thoroughly practical farmer and not just an eager amateur dabbler—and no more easy is the search for the practical farmer who is sufficient of a mechanic to be appreciative of and encouraging to this new form of mechanical aid ?
So the salesman and so-called district organizers— mostly leading motor agents--know more of the deeprooted problems of land cultivation and working than is represented by a mere smattering of facts sprinkled with glib seasoning with regard to "headlands," • "heavy land," "turnover," "deep ploughing," and so on?
It wants more men of Mr. S. F. Edge's experience and that of a few others we Could name to take the problem in hand. There have been far too .many amateurs busy at it to achieve any lasting success. And, if real and substantial progress is to be made in the future, the agrimotor has got to be taken in hand by experts who not only understand machinery but also are thoroughbred farmers.