Out and Home._By "The Extractor."
Page 12
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The Gaulois tires are making steady progress in the English market. Mr. Tyacke, one of their representatives, is at present on a visit to their factory at Clermont (France).
The Marshall agricultural tractor is, I believe, meeting with much success, and a recent development is to use the tractor also as a stationary engine, so as to wind a cable similar to the Fowler steam plough. They certainly have the power and the cooling area, with this 3oh.p. tractor, to enable them to do so.
A formal request was recently made to me to scan some original testimonials belonging to the Peter Union Tyre Company, and by " scan " I do riot mean to " glance over," as the word is used nowadays, but the proper dictionary meaning of the word, which will be novel to many—to examine carefully. Well ! This I faithfully did, and extracts from these testimonials are-reproduced in another place in this week's issue. These letters have been sent to Peter's by some of the most pro minent bus and railway companies, and by corporations, but permission to publish names has been, perhaps not unnaturally, withheld. 1 can congratulate Mr. Bockernuhl on this wonderful concensus of opinion.
De Dion travellers' vans seem to be as popular as ever, and Mr. J. W. Stocks, for his energy and pluck, deserves his success. 1 met him in the West End the other day, as he was being led by, or leading-I could not quite discover which—a sniall fox terrier. He told me, quite sadly, that he had just returned from a long trip by motorcar through Scotland, about 2,000 miles, and had contrived to avoid running over fugitive animals and poultry all the time, and it was left for him to mangle his own little Yorkshire terrier close to his house, at Streatham, as his family and pets came out to meet him. The sequel was, of course, that Stocks had to " go out and see a man about a dog." The accident, though regrettable, thus afforded me an opportunity to further my own canine studies. Amongst the builders of lorries, I have been given to understand there is difficulty in obtaining wheel felloes in large sizes, and, on looking over the wood-yard of Joseph Owen and Sons, Limited, at Liverpool, I found the very things—a large stock of felloes 81 by 31 inches, and, of course, many other sizes. Also, I saw some fine English ash planks : altogether a wonderful stock of wood. Owen's claim to possess the largest wood-yard in England, and I should think the claim is justified.
I had a very interesting chat with Mr. John Wallis, the head of the Wallis and Steevens Company, a few days ago, at Basingstoke. One does not often hear such an unqualified account of briskness of trade in every department, and the situation of the works—right-in the centre of Basingstoke—preCludes the possibility of extension there. .Mr. Wallis lamented the fact that they were not some distance out, like Thornycroft's ; as it is, I was soon able to learn that they are behind with deliveries of both tractors and wagons.