HAY HARVESTING BY MOTOR LORRY.
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Substituting Mechanical Power for the Horse in Another Sphere of Farming Operations.
IF THE question of the value of a lorry J. to the farmer be considered merely from the point of road haulage, then two things are apparent. In the first case, a. vehicle with a capacity of froni 2 to 21 tons appears to be the one .which would become most popular in that service. Secondly, that the economic limit of its application Would be on a mixed farm of approximately 200 acres. The next question which arises is whether, by extension of its use in other directions than merely that of road haulage, it could not be made to pay on farms of less acreage. I believe that greater experience would show this is possible and, in the meantime, it is of interest to note that some experiments are being carried out at the Wye Agricultural College with a view to ueeing how fir direct use of the lorry can be made in harvesting operations.
With a view to demonstrating its use in connection with the hay harvest, some preliminary experiments were carried out on the College Farm a few days ago.
The vehieles which took part were a Burford 21 tonner and a O.M.C. 1 tonnet. The fOrmer was used in conjunction with a hay loader provided by the International Harvester Co., while the latter worked in conjunction with a Massey-Harris machine, somewhat similar in type. For the benefit of the uninitiated, it may be pointed out that these hayloaders consist of revolving collecting forks or sweeps, which pick up the hay from the field and deliver it to an elevator, which lifts it over and above the lorry in which it is deposited, being thefe properly distributed over the lorry platform by a couple of farm labourers. Both the vehicles employed were fitted with a special type of body adapted for this unusual load, consisting of four posts, one at each corner of the high-sided lorry, the posts being connected by three ropes, each of which supPorted a couple of loose vertical wooden stays. By "loose" I mean that they were not secured to the sides of the lorry in any manner, but merely hung from the ropes. They served to keep the latter evenly spaced.
The hayfield was about half or threequarters of a mile from the rickyard, which was equipped with a hay elevator for assisting the process (3f stacking. The lorry, complete with hay-loader, traversed the field at the speed of four or five miles an hour. The loader, particularly that which was provided by the
International Harvester Co., made a clean sweep of the hay for the full width of the lorry, lifted it and deposited it on the body. A little difficulty was encountered -owing to the presence of a fairly high wind, which, at any rate, snowed use value of the small. windscreen with which the Massey-Harris
loader was fitted. The Burford lorry was filled to its capacity in from onehalf to three-quarters of an hour, then ran to the rick yard, deposited its load in about the same time as it took to collect it, and returned, the demonstration being a complete success.
The important point to note is that the lorry demonstrated not only its economical advantage over horse-drawn vehicles, but also that its service would enable the operation to be speeded up, so that in the case of impending bad weather the hay could be collected and stored in time. One motor lorry easily did the work of three pairs of horses and hay wagons. The labour employed was reduced in proportion, while tho speed of the lorry was such that it would be quite economical to harvest a comparatively large field using the one lorry only, even to the ,extent of allowing the labourers to travel to and fro loading the hay at. one end and unloading it at the other. The second point to notice is that in thus discovering that the lorry can satisfactorily perform this work in the field, we are. finding a way of increasing its scope of employment, and thus making it a more economical and satisfactory proposition, SO far as the farmer is concerned, on smaller holdings. This development appears to be a preliminary to the substitution of the motor lorry for the horse in yet another sphere Of operations. With a, very little adaptation, it would be possible to drive the hay elevator from the lorry engine all the time it was being unloaded. All that is required is some quick method of coupling the engine shaft to the elevator shaft, so that no time would be lost in arranging the drive.