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Modern Land-drainage Machinery

30th April 1943, Page 24
30th April 1943
Page 24
Page 25
Page 24, 30th April 1943 — Modern Land-drainage Machinery
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Demonstrates Its Worth

FT4011. generations, the importance of land drainage to agriculture has 'been well known.' " Presumably, the lack of it in various areas has been due to the heavy expense hitherto associated with most adequate drainage schemes. This, in turn, has been a result of the large amount of labour

required. '

It is, therefore, not surprising that recent intense activity in the drainage of large areas should be %accompanied by the development of numerous mechanical deVices.., which are calcu_lated to speed up the work and to• • reduce the volume of labour needed. Necessity, again, has been the mother of invention, for it may fairly be said that without mechanization many of these drainage schemes would be impossible to-day, simply on the score of available labotir andquite -apart froin the monetary Cost.

• To show what is Available for this 'purpose the Land Drainage Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, in conjunction with the Leicestershire W.A.E.C., • recently staged. a* demonstration of land-drainage machinery. That Committee has taken over some 300 acres of sodden grassland at Burton Lazars, near. Melton Mowbray, and formed a useful site for the purpose.

Its clay sub-soil provided conditions as heavy as would often. _ be encountered-, although soMe .speetiters

regretted the absence of any such snags

as ' Varied stumPs 'rock. .1 Others found it necessary to translate the results into what might be expected on lighter and more friable land. • Broadly, three classes ofmachine find useful application in this work. One embodies a jib-boom with drag lines and an excavator bucket which (as in the Teredo trenching attachment demonstrated on a Priestman Otter) may be shaped so as to produce a fiaisheci trench with slightly sloping sides and a rounded bottorn ready to take the drainage tiles (or pipes).

An Otter was also shOwn, with side dragline excavator, in which form it is particularly suited to work on open ditches, or,. larger water-Courses that need clearing. This Machine and the someiqat, similar Cub have their own power units, but the same firm (Messrs. Bomford arid Evershed, Of Evesham) also make the Mark III Badger ditcher which works on broadly similar lines to a side-dragline excavator but can be powered by any track-laying tractor.

A totally different class of machine embodies the principle of the Milling cutter. It cuts a trench of he required shape and size by sinking to the desired depth a rotating wheel provided with Cutting edges. In the American-built Buckeye, soil is carried up by this wheel and is deposited • on a short transverse conveyor belt _which drops it on one side clear of the trench.

This machine with a 60 h.p. oil engine and six pneumatic wheels has a read speed of 25 m.p.h., so that a minimum time is spent in moving from site to site. It is said to trench at a speed Of 6 ft. per .min: and to have reached a depth Of 5.ft. 4 ins., which is much more than enough for most circuinstances.

In the third general class are machines which Work on the principle of the Wedge, or the plough. Prac • tically without exception, these are designed to be -handled by a separate tractor by means either of a direct hitch or, in many cases, through the agency of a cable and winch operated by the tractor.

Three sub-divisions of this class can be discerned. In one is the familiar mole-drainer and machines developed from it. Of the latter, a fine example is the Watson tile drainer which has what amounts to a large mole that is hollow in 'its after part. A steel tube leads to it and, through this, tiles are fed by two attendants who handle them from racks on the machine to the feed tube. The tiles are, therefore, laid at the required depth without the excava

tion of a trench and, of course, without the need for subsequent filling in.

It calls for considerable power, the tractive resistance rising to perhaps 10 tons on heavy land. A tractoroperated winch is, therefore, used with a cable passing over a large pulley on the drainer, so that the pull is shared by three lengths of it.

A second sub-division is based broadly on the ridging plough. The Turner Cooper trench digger (built from scrap by a Leicestershire farmer of that name) has three coulters in front to cut through the bid, one along • the centre line and the others along each edge Of the trench. Behind these follows a plough with wings, or breasts, which place the lifted sOil on each side of the trench. It is winch operated and the apparently effortless way in which it shifts huge lumps of clay is most impressive. A tank provides water lubrication for the passage of the soil over the breasts.

Iry this same sub-division may be placed such machines as the L.R.B. trencher (hauled by a Fordson with Rotoped equipment) and the Manarson Delver (drawn by a T6 International track-layer), both of which take 'out about 6 lila of soil at each traverse, several 'runs being needed to complete the trench.

Typifying the third sub-division is the Gardner trench digger which Was hauled by a Fordson-operated Cooke winch. This, too, has coulters to cut the top edge of the trench. Behind

them is what amounts to a steel wedge working rather like a huge rabbeting plane. It takes a cut ,,about 12 ins. deep at each traverse and, by means of a single wing or breast, deposits this on one side of the trench.

The Astell trenching plough, also drawn by a Cooke winch, takes out the whole depth at one cut and, as demonstrated, can be arranged either to slide the soil to one side or to pass it over an arch and directly back into the trench on top of tiles, which are laid by hand under the arch as the machine moves slowly along.

The Yates trench plough, also winch operated, cuts a neat trench to the full depth in one operation and can be fitted with a tile-laying attachment so that the only remaining work is to fill in. For this purpose, incidentally, a Fordson was demonstrated as a miniature bulldozer with a timber baulk in front on a light steel framework.

Apparently, in a class by itself is the less ambitious but distinctly, useful Kerry-Pratt ditch cutter. This consists of a skid with a simple steel cutter which forms the sides and bottom of the ditch, but leaves the soil in position so that it must be lifted by spade. It 'certainly reduces the labour of ditch digging and this, together with its comparatively low cost and the fact that it can be pulled direct by a Fordson or similar tractor, will doubtless commend it to many farmers


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