MOTOR POWER ON THE ESTATE.
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How the Motor Can be Economically Employed on the Estate and the Home Farm.
MOTOR power has proved one of the greatest boons to owners of estates during recent . . . .
years. An estate is so .different from a farm ; indeed, it. may be said to include the farm and a good deal besides. There are very few estates with no land cultivated by the owner, and, generally; there is included in it a home farm.. In many localities the home farm, is expectedto give the lead always, in the matter of new maehinry and devices for doing farm work. .
On the estate farms, at any rate, an agrimotor is found, with its necessary equipment of power implement, including ploughs, cultivators, harrows, drills, rnfnure distributors, power haymaking machinery, and harvesting machinery. On these farms, too, generally, a first-class man is.employed to look after the machinery, and the agrimotor is seen. then at its best.
We are not sure that estate farms are always run on the most economical lines, as, very often, there is insufficient oversight and too little personal touch on the part of the attendants to keep everything on an economical . basis. Apart from that, the estate certainly' performs a great service to agriculture in
being among the first to test out -new implements. Of course, this work is not done—in, fact, cannot be lone—as a purely philanthropic venture. It is done with the object of making the estate farm pay and having _everything run on up-to-date lines, in order that the beat may be • secured for the owner. On these farms, the agrimotor is now a regular feature.' Yery often, too, there is a heavy motor lorry, and it will net be long before every estate farm has its light lorry or light van, but it is for the service of the chief's house that road motors become most in evidence, because, as we have said before, an .estate frequently includes, a farm, but an enormous amount of work has to be attended to that has nothing at all to do with the home farm. For instance, there are -the woods, the parks and the timber which need power, not only in felling and hauling, but for planting as well, and then 'there is 'the fencing on the whole estate, on the farms of tenants, and so" on.
For heavy work, a steamer is generally employed, but, for the lighter work, such as the carting about of fencing materials, bricks, cement, and so on, a heavy petrol lorry is employed. Then we come to the service of the house itself. There is always a good deal of station work to he done, and the light van comes in very useful hete for bringing in light loads and for conveying luggage to and from the station. This Van isall the better if it has a removable body for conversion, as necessity arises, into a passenger bus.. Such a type of vehicle is very useful on. the •estate, not only for station work, but for conveying workmen from one. part of the estate to another, thus saving walking time.
The purpose of the stationary motor has now become fairly established on the estate and needs no further elaboration here, except that it might be useful to pointout that even in the matter of stationary petrol and ail engines; improvements are continually taking Place. AlWays, on an estate, there is a large amount of road-work to be attended to. Again, the motor comes in with the motor road rollers, made by seVeral .firms, notably • Barford and Perkins; they make motor rollers suitable for small farm roads, for big and numerously frequented. roads. -Altogether, this is one of the. hest developments of power for estate works that 'has been made, road-making having been a bugbear, which has new been much eased.
Another. useful implement is the motor •lawn mower. This appliance is particularly good. There is always a great deal of lawn ritowin.g in Connection with estate work. By hand, the work is a very heavy task, besides being slow and expensive where there is much to do. The hand lawn mower was supplanted by the horse-drawn lawn Mower, but this necessitated the keeping of a pony for that purpose and for general. jogging about. Again, in the case of the horse being used, even when fitted with proper shoes, there was always the danger of a certain • amount of damage being done to the turf. This damage was not always important, but on courses for games, and in other instances ,where it was required that there should be no unevenness whatever, the -horse. on the lawn was a drawback: Until, recent years, the horse, the steam-engine, and the stationary internal-coinbustion engine were the only formsof power available. Latterly, the cost Of keeping horses and the time taken in doing the work and, therefore, the cost in labour, became enormous, se that the motor has proved 'a great boon to the estate owner. The selling up of horses and replacing .them by-` mote,' power has enabled manyan .estate to carry on where,. otherwise, it would li.ave been broken up and sold.
On tho estates then, the motor comes. in as. a• stationary plant, for ploughing and cultivating the land.; the steamer for doing the heavy work such as timber hauling, the hauling of building materials, and draining materials; the light motor for the conveyance of luggage and light goads, passengers to and from the station f and workmen to various-parts of the estate. The heavy petrol lorry is suitable and is used for all sorts of other purposes, for.hauling weights o between that of the light van and the heavy steamer, for the conveyance of exhibits to shows, and so on, while the petrol roller does its part and the motor lawn mower fulfils a most useful function.
We have only now to mention drainage. Drainage, that terror of expense and time, can, now be reduced by half, both in the matter of time and expense, by.'the' use of the agritnotar with power drain excavators, The modern estate, equipped with up-to-date power, really is a wonderful organization, and provides a great-example of the possibilities that lie before power in agriculture, provided that proper organization and co-ordination is secured.