TAKING THE ROUGH WITH THE SMOOTH.
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Getting the Grass on a Golf Course Under Control at a Quarter of Horse traction Costs.
By R. T. Nicholson, M.A., Author of "The Book of the Ford," and Secretary of the Farnham Golf Club.
THIS little effort stands related to two great interests of mine—the Ford and golf. (Incidentally, I drive a Ford a lot better than I drive a golf ball!) The horse is a noble animal, but he is out of place on a golf course. He is out of a job on ours. The grooming of a golf course is not as easy as it may seem. It is difficult to keep an inland course, at all events, in trim condition during the growing season (which normally lasts for about two months from the middle of May). During that period the grass grows thickly and quickly, and the heavy accumulation lasts until the winter frosts begin.
Failure of Horse Traction.
The Farnham course, with which I am associated, is particularly prolific in grass. Originally an effort was made to keep the " rough " down with a 30-in, hay cutter (reaper), a 42-in, pony mower being used for the fairways, the result being that every summer the grass got the upper hand. Even the fairways were shaggy, while the " rough " became a veritable jungle, in which good balls got lost by the gross in the grass.
The pony mower was written down a failure. A triple-unit Pennsylvania mower was bought, with three overlapping cutting "cylinders," jointly mowing a 7-ft. track.
This gave far better results as regards the fairways ; but the " rough " still beat us, the haycutter being too slow to keep it down and the mower not being "up to it." So, even though we hired extra horses and worked overtime, the growth beat us, and players continued to grumble about lost balls.
At that juncture we investigated the merits of 'mechanical traction, with the result that we ventured on the purchase of a Metropolitan 'tractor, marketed by
Mesa's. H. Pattisson and Co., Stanmore, Middlesex. With a tip-cart for occasional use, it cost us £146 17s. 6d. delivered. (Cost of substituting a steel frame for the wooden frame of the Pennsylvania mower meant a few pounds more.) Since that day we have never looked back, except to wonder why we tried to accomplish a herculean task with such poor equipment in the old days.
Success with the Motor.
The tractor-drawn mower keeps all the course playable all the time. Lost balls are no longer a worry ;• even a ball hunt is a rare experience. There is no part of the links to which the most erratic player can send his ball that will not yield it up again. The whole area looks like an advertisement for a super-razor !
There is heather as well as grass on the Farnham course, and we tackle that too. I do not, however, advocate slashing a mower through unduly heavy growth of any kind. Such growth should first be got well down with the hay cutter (which can also be pulled by the tractor) ; but, once it is down, the mower will for ever after do the work—at much greater speed—since the grass and heather need never again be allowed to get long.
The Metropolitan tractor is essentially a converted Ford. The standard chassis is, however, extended backwards by the addition of a frame, carrying two wide-tread spiked iron wheels on an independent axle. (The wheels are made wide so that they will not sink into the turf, and they are spiked so that they will pull even in soft ground. The spikes, incidentally, do good work in aerating the soil.)
The standard road wheels are removed from the back axle proper, and in their places two roller pinions are mounted. These pinions engage teeth on the inside perimeters of the special rear wheels just described, giving an internal rack-and-pinion drive. It will be seen that the driving wheels are thus greatly geared down, so that the tractor must travel slowly.
From this statement it will be obvious that the bletropolitan tractor is no " flivver." There is no danger of its exceeding the speed limit ! But why this limitation? Because such a tractor is built to haul existing agricultural machinery, and such machinery is not constructed for high mileage per hour. It would go to pieces under it. Think !
A mower designed for horse draught does its best work at a speed of from 3 to 5 miles an hour, that being the comfortable pace of a horse. This means about 600 revolutions a minute for the cylinders carrying the knives. If you increase this speed to, say, 10 miles an hour, you make those wretched cylinders turn about 1,800 times a minute. (Similar considerations apply also to the hay cutter. Its reciprocating knives make about 2,400 strokes a minute. What will happen if you make them reciprocate at the rate of some 7,500 strokes a minute?) Agricultural machinery will never stand up to such figures.
On the basis of the foregoing facts, the mower must riot travel at a speed of more than about 5 miles an hour, add the Metropolitan tractor is deliberately designed with that speed limit in view. To that extent it is a compromise, but many compromises work exceedingly well.
Obviously, a mower could be made that would stand up against a higher mileage. Scientifically, there is nothing impossible in that ; there are, however, some practical considerations that tell against it. Whilst it would be practicable to gear the cylinders down so that they would turn at the rate of 600 revolutions a minute behind a high-speed tractor, that would not be effective; for, owing to the increased speed of travel, the successive cuts would fall wide apart instead of close together, as is necessary for a good job. They could be made to fall close together only by setting the knives close together on the cylinders and using a great many of them. That would be a costly matter, and would involve general reconstruction• of the mower throughout.
It would seem, then, that the' Metropolitan tractor is well designed for its work. In practice it displaces at least two horses and saves at least one man's labour, That is a very modest statement of its economies. Circumstances alter cases, the "lie of the land" and the nature of the growth making all the difference. On sonic courses the tractor has displaced four horses and saved the labour of three men. It also dispenses with the need for more than one mower on most links, which is an important consideration.
I have so far assumed the use of a triple mower with a 7-ft. track. The Metropolitan tractor is, however, quite capable of hauling 4 quintuple or a septuple mower, giving respectively a 11-ft. 6-in, and a 16-ft. track. In my judgment the quintuple mower represents the limit of practical efficiency, the septuple being cumbrous, especially in turning.
It must not be supposed that the Metropolitan tractor is merely a Ford chassis modified as already described, There are other modifications—e.g., an oversized radiator and other devices needed for the efficient use of a slow-moving machine.
Nor must it be supposed that the tractor can do nothing but haul cutting machinery. It will carry a tip-cart for movement of soil, or other material, about the course. (Here I should say that the weight of the tip-cart, as well as the pull of the mower or hay cutter, is taken entirely by the supplementary axle—not by the standard Ford axle.) It will pull ground rollers— spiked or otherwise—up to a big weight and width. The special iron wheels can be removed and the standard wheels replaced in normal position, when the tractor becomes an ordinary Ford, for road use, if desired.
Of the reliability, of the outfit there can be no question. It is a Ford ; good enough I
Running costs are apparently high. Petrol consumption is about gallon per hour of use, and oil goes at the rate of about 1 gallon in 50 hours' work. This means rather over is. an hour, to which must be added the driver's wages. But the tractor is not, of course, continuously in use all the year round-1,000 hours in the year being all that would ordinarily be needed. When everything is paid—wages, interest on the outlay, depreciation, insurance and fuel—its cost, on the same basis of efficiency and area covered, works out at only about one-quarter of that of horse traction. The high cost is, therefore, only apparent.
1 am all for it.