AGRIMOTOR NOTES.
Page 15
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" Demonstration in Ireland.
I wonder why more attention is not being paid in this country to the rotary type of mechanicallyimpelled implement. It is used, with more or less success, in nearly all continental countries. In the case of the plough, shares are arranged round a drum so that they form the threads of a multi-thread screw or worm which is very short in an axial direction. The drum is revolved by chain driving gear from the gearbox or axle of the tractor. The shares are so disposed round the dram that each enters the ground at the point at which the last one left, the result being a, continuous furrow. Several drums, side by side on the same axle, and driven by the same gearing, constitute a multiple-farrow plough. The principal advantages appear to be a reduction in weight, simplification of operation, rendering the combined tractor and pIougli a real one-man outfit, and the ease of application of an efficient power lift. The main disadvantage is, I believe, the impossibility of controlling the speed of the tractor so that ther plough will consistently turn an even furrow slice. On soft ground, for example, when the tractor wheels are slipping, since the plough, in those circumstances, revolves at an increased speed, while the pace of the tractor is reduced, the result is an extremely erratic furrow.
Brown and Ramsay, Ltd.' Lower Baggot Street, Dublin—the moving spirit of which firm, Mr. Burton A. Phillipson, has just been appointed chairman of the Irish Section of the Motor Trades' Association for the ensuing year—have taken up the sole Irish agency for the American traetersi Interstate, Killen-Strait and Bates Steel Mule, now being handled in the United Kingdom by the Austin Motor Co., of Birmingham. They gave a public demonstration of the machines on the farm of Mr. Peter Reilly, j.P., at Newtown Hyland, St. Margaret's, Co. Dublin, on Wednesday, 16th January. The features of the three agrimotors that the Austin Co. are marketing are well known to our readers. The conditions were most unfavourable. During the night there had been a frost
accompanied by a heavy fall of snow, and so unfavourable was the weather that malty feared the demonstration could not take place. The tractors, however, rose superior to the weather conditions, and althoughthe ground was exceptionally hard, each of them gave a very telling exhibition of 'their possibilities in. the matter of ploughing. The attendance was not so satisfactory as was anticipated would be the case, but this was due to the fact that people hiring in outlying districts were unable to reach the scene of operations owing to the condition of the roads.
A private demonstration was given previous to the public trials for the benefit of the officials of the Departments of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. The weather on. this day, too, was very disagreeable, rain falling for the greater part of the time the demonstration was in progress. The Department's officials were greatly impressed by the performance of the three machines, and as n result of their observations and examination, they are now prepared to advance loans of money on the terms already. announced for the purchase of these machines.