• EXPERIMENTS WITH THE AGRIMOTOR.
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The Valuable Work at the Rothamsted Research Station Shows the Economy and Efficiency of the Agrimotor.
AVERY interesting report has recently been issued by the Rothamsted Experimental ' Station, Harpenden, on experiments carried out with an agrimotor between 1918 and 1920. The experience given in the report proves that the agrimotor is likely to help considerably in reducing two great controllable items of expenditure, viz., cost of cultivation and cost of cleaning land. The report states that the rapid development of the agrimotor on the farm is a direct outcome of the war. Few machines were used before 1916, but many have been used since. The report also speaks complimentarily of the Machinery Section of the Food Production Department, which was in existence during the war, in bringing the value of the agrimotor to the knowledge of farmers. Regarding4his particular,experiment, a 20 h.p. Titan agrimotor was purchased for Rothamsted in May, 1919 The Titan was selected because it was known to be reliable on heavy land and because no English, firm was thea in a position to, guarantee delivery in _a reasonable time. The machine gave satisfactory service and remained in good condition with little expenditureton repairs. The great drawback to this machine is its weight, which. approximates 60 cwt., thus rendering it unsuitable for spring cultivations. For the 1921 season the".Austin Co. placed at the disposal of the Rothamsted. Experimental Station one of their new agrimotors, which is much lighter, weighing only 30 cwt., and it is recorded that, so far, very good work has been done.
Regarding the experiments with the Titan, the report states that tractor has proved its value in four main directions :— (1) Rapidity of'work. (2) Cleaning of stubbles in autumn. (3) Cost' of working. (4) Increase in efficiency of labour.
Taking, first, "rapidity of wori. the soil eompos- ing•the farm is heavy loam, and for this reason it is essential that cultivations should be carried out quickly, as they are entirely dependent upon the weather, and unless done when the conditions allow they have to be postponed or curtailed considerably. The tractor hastens cultivation; it moves at the rate of 3} miles per hour instead of 31-21 miles, the speed of horses; it ipleughs three furrows at a time, arid will go on working longer than horses. The Rothamsted horse team takes up to a day and a half to plough an acre; the tractor does it in four hours and does it better, for it readily works to 7 ins., while the horse team usually go only to 5 ins. The value of this additional speed has been shown in the rate at which the sowing of wheat over the whole farm has been completed. In the old days of slow horse cultivations, sowing could not be completed in October or November, and there remained always fields to be sown in January or February, according as the weather allowed. Since the advent of the tractor, however, the work has been pushed well forward and the land has all been sown in November. The dates of sowing are :— Wheat sown in time (November 24th, 1915) yielded 28i bushels. Wheat sown late (February 17th, 1916) yielded 191 bushels.
With regard to (2), " cleaning of stubbles in autumn." In the autumn of 1919 the arable fields were very weedy, as usual over wide tracts of Eng land where cultivation had perforce been neglected for three years. Summer fallowing during 1920 would, of course, have been effective but it was too costly. Instead, therefore, the tractor was liberally used for cultivating the stubbles during harvest, and much cleaning was done during August, September, and October. The effect was very striking. The weed seeds germinated in the warm, moist land ; the seed lings, being very susceptible to injury, were easily killed by cultivations ; and as the cultivation was carried out before instead of after sowing the crop, it was entirely beneficial and did no damage. In conse quence the land which had been foul in 1919 became tolerably clean in 1920, in spite of the fact that a second winter corn crop was sown. The autumn cleaning was repeated in 1920 and a third corn crop sown ; and it was free filbm troublesome weeds.
The advantages of this method is that it gives much more latitude in cropping than before. Under the old horse cultivation it was imperative to grow a root crop once in five or six years to keep down weeds, and the staff were always rather beaten in the struggle. Under the present method it1. is possible to grow any crop one pleases unless a prolonged wet autumn should set in. This was illustrated by the Great Harpenden field, where the crops and yields per acre hairs:, been :—Harvest of 1914, mangolds 181 tons, and potatoes, varieties, 7-10 tons ; 1915, wheat 25 bushels, and 'barley 40 bushels ; 1916, wheat 26 bushels, and oats 38 bushels ; 1917, wheat 23 bushels; 1918, clover (weedy) 11 tons; 1919, oats (weedy) stubble cleaned, f32 bushels ; 1920, wheat (clean) 32 bushels ; 1921, wheat (still clean).
In regard to "cost of working," the report continues :—" Our experience up to the present is that the cost of working with the tractor is less than with horses. For the Titan the figures for the cost of ploughing an acre of land have compared as follow - With regard to "increase in efficiency of labour." "It would" (says the report) " be difficult, even if it were possible, to reduce the rate of wages, but there is abundant room for an increase in efficiency. The American estimates, as given by K. L. Butterfield in the 'Farmer and the New Day,' are :—United States, 100 per cent. ; ;United Kingdom, 43 per cent. ; Germany, 41 per cent. ; France, 31 per cent. ; Italy, 15 per cent.
" The figures may not be absolutely accurate, but it is undeniable that the British worker falls far behind the American in output. No British worker would admit that there need be so great a difference as the figures show, even if any need exist at all. The best hope for the future of the rural community is an increase in efficiency of the worker sufficient to allow for a fall in cost of production without a fall in wages "The tractor greatly increases the output of the worker. Its effect in shown by the figures for the following times of cultivation of an acre of land "Easing the work of cultivation.—The tractor is purely mechanical in its operation, and consumes fuel in exact proportion to the work done by the engine. It is imperative therefore, that useless work should be avoided so imperative, as possible. Farmers have long known in a general way that certain manures facilitate the working of the land, and we have this year begun measurements, which we hope to develop, showing the saving thus effected in energy, i.e., in fuel, oil, and wear and tear.
"One of the most effective agents in ameliorating heavy soil is chalk. Since 1912, in several fields we have had large plots of chalked and unchalked land, each several acres in extent, and have kept records of the yields obtained. These show improvement in clover and barley, but not in potatoes, wheat, mangolds, etc. Over a six-course rotation there is less financial return than might have been expected, though, of course, it is satisfactory so far as it goes. The ploughman always declared, however, that he could work more easily on the chalked than on the unchalked land. No measure of this difference could be obtained with horse implements, but it can be done with a tractor. The Hyatt Roller Bearings Co. kindly lent us a reliable, high-class dynamometer, with which were taken measurements for crossploughing land previously ploughed in autumn. These show that the effect of closdking is to increase the speed of ploughing and to reduce the drawbar pull on the three-furrow plough by no less than 200 lb.
" We nronese to extend these measurements to plots treated with other fertilizers: ,farmyard manure, green manure, folded land, etc. The 'secondary effects' ofartificials, studied here by Sir A. D. Hall, may prove to have a measurable economic value when one adds up all the tractor cultivations of the year. " It is often urged as a reproach to agricultural experts that, in spite of the multitudinous experiments of the last twenty years, the output from the land is no more than it was fifty years ago. The statement is not entirely correct, but there certainly has been up increase in output from the land comparable with that in industry. One important reason is that much less cultivation is done now than was usual fifty years ago, and, in consequence, the crop is not given a full chance of making good growth. With the advent of the tractor it will, we hope, become possible to remedy this defect and to enable some of the newer aids to crop production to attain their full effect " AGRIMOT.