Producer-gas Tractor Serves Grass-drying Plant
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ECONOMY in two directions is represented by the outfit depicted in the accompanying illustrations. It includes a Fordson tractor equipped with a Gohin Poulenc producer-gas plant, and it is seen cutting grass from which— by a process incorporating artificial drying—meal for making cattle cake is produced in quick time. Thus, vaIteable fodder is provided from grass cuttings which otherwise would poSsibly be wasted, whilst home-produced fuel supplies power and heat for the various operations involved, so saving imported liquid fuel for purposes to which it is indispensable.
The operator of the plant, including the tractor, of course, is the de Havilland Aircraft Co., Ltd., the manufacturing and training activities of which concern are naturally -widely decentralized. It is trying this method at some of its depots with a view to obtaining the best calorific value from grass from
hundreds of acres.. At one of the corn-, pany's aerodromes the photographs reproduced here were taken.
This particular tractor was equipped with gas plant, for which British Gazogenes, Ltd.. 48, Broadway, London, SAVA, is responsible, by Spurling Motor Bodies, Ltd., The Hyde, London, N.W.9. Neatness characterizes the installation, of which a feature is the use of a supplementary gas-cooler mounted in front of the radiator of the Fordson. The capacity of the hopper is 1 cwt. of Suncole, enough for a day's work, that is 12 hours, for which period 15 gallons of petrol, we were informed, were formerly used.
At the time of our inspection, the gas plant had been in use nearly three weeks, and is reported to have been giving a highly satisfactory perform ance. Starting up the producer is notably quick, maintenance operations cause no trouble, and more than ample power is available. There is little doubt, indeed, that the tractor is capable of doing much heavier work than that upon which it is now engaged, but this will be of value, probably, during the months of December and January, when there is no grass cutting and it may be used for ploughing.
Following the 'tractor is a Wilder Cutlift cutter collector, of which the cutter-bar and elevator are driven by a separate power unit, and behind this is a high-sided trailer into which the grass is loaded. It can carry 3 tons of undried cuttings. When the trailer is full, the tractor tows it to the drying plant and unloads it, by the simple expedient of hitching the drawbar to the free ends of ropes encircling the hay, These, of which there are three, are anchored to the front of the trailer floor, along which they lie, their free ends normally hanging over the back and the cuttings being loaded over them. When brought into use they are flung forwards over the load and pulled.
Having been discharged the grass is fed into the drying oven, through which it passes on a conveyor. At the other end it emerges, a matter of minutes later, in the same condition to which it would have been brought by natural means in a matter of days. Then it is passed through a mill and a separator for the extraction of particles of foreign matter, and it emerges as fine green meal, the appetising smell of which makes one envious of the animals for whom it is destined.
To be precise it does not actually emerge at all, for it is delivered from the separator directly into 56-lb. bags in which it is dispatched for manufacture into cake or for other purposes. We understand that the price paid for this meal is £14 per ton. The furnace consumes approximately 18 cwt. of coal for every 13 cwt. of meal delivered. Counting those working the tractor and implement, only five men are needed to operate the complete apparatus.
The de IIavilland company is to be congratulated onthe attention it is devoting, in this side-line enterprise, to the nationally important matter of providing fodder for livestock. Its example *might well be followed in other quarters, for there must be _ hundreds of tons of grass cuttings wasted in this country every year.