Openings for Stationary Petrol Motors in Canada.
Page 16
Page 17
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By "Home Again."
During my passage through the North-West Provinces of Canada, wherein I was brought intimately into contact with every phase of commercial and manufacturing activity, beyond the confines of the greater cities, the most-outstanding feature was the demand for small units of power for a thousand and one purposes, insignificant perhaps in themselves, but of considerable significance when regarded in the aggregate. The amount of work that at present is accomplished manually or by animal effort, at in calculable. expense and fatigue, is Ninety-five per cent. of this work could be accomplished by small engines, costing but little either in the way of capital expenditure or for fuel, and to greater satisfaction, The petrol motor is displacing the horse on the farm slowly and surely, and, thanks to the energy of American manufacturers, through their Canadian agents, small stationary motors are coming into favour.
True this industry has not yet attained considerable proportions, but for every motor one sees of British manufacture one will see over 70 of United States origin. The imports of small motors between 2 h.p. and 20 h.p. from south of the border is well over 6,000 per annum, whereas the British product averages not more than 100 per year. The trade is certainly well worth catering for, inasmuch as the United States reap over £200,000 per annum from these sales, and within the next decade this amount. will probably be multiplied one hundred times.
British manufacturers appear to ignore this field for some inscrutable reason, or else when they do entertain the idea of supplying the Canadian market they demand such terms from the local agents that they decline to accept them for the simple reason that the United States producer is most liberal in his treatment. In Montreal, I discussed the subject with one importer, a young English fellow, whose lamentations against British methods were emphatic. He was in need of a small cheap motor of about 4 h.p. to 6 h.p. He had attempted to favour British manufacturers aa he had an immediate order for 144 small engines. He could not secure what he demanded, and, though negotiations were in progress, the importunity of his various customers resulted in the order being sent to the United
States. It was acknowledged in three days, and within a weak the goods were in his hands. It is doubtful if British manufacturers realize the scope and magnitude of this trade. The great cities offer no means of grasping the situation, as cheaper and moreconvenient sources of power such as electricity and gas are easily available. But when one gets beyond the confines of the supply of these forms of energy it is revealed startlingly and emphatically. I passed through farm after farm in the prairie provinces where power, though in demand, was not available. Steam cannot be used owing to the high price of coal, and wood is just as dear. Even peat is unavailable. On the other hand, petrol can be obtained readily, cheaply, and in unlimited quantities. Western homesteads are wooden structures for the most part ; lighting has to be carried out with a coal, oil-gas or petrol system, and the owner is the first to admit that it is beset with innumerable dangers, but he has no alternative beyond candles or oil lamps. He would take up electric lighting with avidity if it were brought within his grasp ; meanwhile, combined petrol-electric sets inset his views to a nicety.
Then again there are a hundred and one little operations about the farmstead where power is in urgent request, such as chaff-cutting, wood-sawing, haulage of logs from a stationary point, churning, driving laundry machines and so forth. The Canadian farmer is such an enterprising individual and a firm believer in adopting and adapting power with the view of reducing manual effort that he turns this energy to purposes which the average British farmer would not conclude as being worth while. Probably it is carried to excess, but the man does not believe in making himself a beast of burden if he can get the same work done by mechanical agency, although it may be a little more expensive.
On the prairie, the homesteader has to sink his well, and obtain his water on the spot for his domestic purposes. If he is well blessed with this world's goods, he erects a windmill system ; if he cannot afford this outlay, the water has to be raised by hand in the primitive manner with a bucket. A small petroldriven pump meets this requirement completely, and, what is more, the capital expenditure is so slight that he does not observe it, while at the same time he is placed in areally stronger position therewith than if he were equipped with a wind-wheel, since he is not a victim to the capriciousness of the wind, and is not troubled by days when there is not sufficient breeze to rotate the wheel.
Indeed, now, it seems as if the suitability of this means of raising water is not passed on the Canadian prairie. As the claims and advantages of the petrol motor become known, the older system is being superseded by the explosion engine, especially in its portable form whereby it can be made to serve a variety of purposes in turn. The machine is being pressed into service even for sinking wells by the manipulation of the drilling plant.
Some idea of the multifarious duties such an engine as this is destined to fulfil upon a Canadian farm may be gathered from a feu of the more important ramifications in its daily operation, and to all of which it should be adaptable—turning grindstones, running fanning machines, volume pumps, sprayers, corn shellers, chaff cutters, washing machines, cream separators, churns, drag-saws, spray pumps, bone cutters, watering hoses, irrigation systems (pumping water from creeks or streams into ditches or tanks for distribution), clipping machines, window washing, and sawing firewood.
On the wheat farms it may also be turned into service for threshing operations. One farmer had rigged up a portable petrol and electric set on a small frame which could be removed from a four-wheeled cart by the release of four bolts. He was using this for running his threshing machinery, while his petrol agricultural tractor was performing its other duties such as hauling the reaper and binder.
Here the petrol motor was safe from competition owing to the prohibitive cost of coal and wood, while petrol on the other hand averaged about tenpence per gallon and will be even cheaper when the demand becomes sufficiently heavy Lo render its train haulage more economical than at present, where the spirit cars have to be associated with other produce, thus demanding special precautions. At some of the stations on the prairie the advent of the explosion motor is being anticipated by the provision of bulk storage tanks, and there is on the market at the moment more than one type of farm balk-petrol tank of cylindrical shape varying in capacity from ten barrels upwards in which to transport the spirit from the stations to the faint, serving also the purpose of a reseevoir for storage.
On the mixed farms it has been found possible to displace a considerable amount of labour by the stationary motor, and that to distinct advantage. One farmer described to me how his portable plant not only performed the ordinary duties of operating the clippers, primping water, the whitewash sprayer and such like, but was able to run five vacuum milkers at the same time. His motor developed only 2 h.p., but he emphasized the fact that the use of this engine had resulted in his stock being healthier and in better condition, for, by means of the auxiliary appliances, he was able to keep them clean, and their fur free from all parasites, while the power operation of the washing machinery kept his utensils in a far cleaner condition.
T.n the prairie towns the possibilities of the internal-combustion engine are just as extensive and varied. In western Canada towns are now being created at the rate of one per day. They are small communities in the first place, numbering anything from 150 to 2,000 people. Such towns, during their transition stages, when they have no means of supplying electricity or gas in bulk, necessarily depend upon the explosion motor under private individual enterprise, and these small towns have many branches of industry during their early days. There is the lumber yard for the supply of timber for the erection of frame buildings, the livery stable for the housing and baiting of horses, the hotel, the printing office, and so on. tacliof these establishments has an opening for power upon a small scale, and the explosion motor fulfils the demand to perfection. For instance, I spent some days at the town of Telkwa, in Northern British Columbia ; the nearest railway station was over 300 miles distant. The town comprised a single street, although many others were planned and development was taking place fairly rapidly. A timber yard was in full swing, and the only source of energy available on the spot was steam, the power being generated by wood fuel. But the shipping in of a steam . engine was a formidable undertaking, the cost of transport alone, from Prince Rupert, on the coast, was in the neighbourhood of 220 per ton. The energetic owner of this mill had planned the erection of a larger plant to meet increasing demands. He had decided to install a petrol motor which was to drive his rip-saw, planer, and one or two subsidiary appliances. He had also completed arrangements for the lighting of the solitary street in the town with electricity, and was to furnish current to the inhabitants for lighting as well The latter were only too pleased to secure this illuminant as their homes, being of wood, and illumination being dependent upon coal-oil, or petrol gas, the danger of fire was very serious.
When I reached Fort George, I was introduced to a young Englishman who was Just establishing a weekly paper. He had secured an up-to-rlate press, but there was only one available source of power he could use. To have brought in a steam engine would have necessitated an outlay on freightage which would have amounted to twice the cost of the plant, for it had to he brought overland from Ashcroft, :330 miles to the south, and the transportation charges were
Leo per ton. Instead of a steam engine, he had acquired a small petrol motor weighing no more than z00 lb., and though petrol cost him 3s. 4d. a gallon it was infinitely
cheaper to him than steam. Recourse to the latter would have required the services of a special man whose wages would have aggregated, at the local price, about 20s. per day, whereas the petrol motor demanded no more attention than he or his printer could extend. When I got farther still from civilization, in the midst of the wilderness, the openings for the internal-combustion engine in a small portable form were even greater. In the forests, lumber was being felled, and although most of it was being rafted down stream in logs to a convenient sawing centre, yet there were many duties which the little engine could fulfil to advantage, such as driving grindstones, the sharpening of axes and other tools, for rope tackle and capstan hauling appliances, lighting the camp, and so forth. In the mining districts the chances were wider still, as they could be pressed into service for operating drills, sawing props, hauling cars, pumping, etc. A 5 h.p. motor, with a winch and cable, becomes in the hands of an ingenious Canadian workman one of the most utilitarian and efficient implements it is possible to conceive. It will easily do the work of a 15 h.p. steam engine or fixed oil engine ; it occupies but one-twentieth of the space required for the former class of power plant, and it can be wheeled about from point to point so as to be brought always within easy reach of its work. One small 3 h.p. engine I saw was mounted on a small flat wheelbarrow, and could be moved about as easily as a bale of hay.