TREES REMOVED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 46, 3 December 1938, Page 8

TREES REMOVED

CLEARING WORK IN RIVER-BED, THE IRRIGATION EXCAVATIONS. MINISTER INSPECTS MACHINERY. The work of the Inigo excavating machines engaged on irrigationi work on the County plains was inspected by the Minister for Pnbljc Works (the Hon. R. Semple) yestejday. Chief interest on the Surrey Hills section of the work centred in the bulldozers, which can cut 10 tons ol spoil every 90 seconds. Til the river-bed near Allenton the Minister saw the new tree-removing machine that has been in operation only a few days. This appliance, operated by a tractor, pulls trees out by the roots with ease in a few minutes. This is part of the £30,000 riverclearing project, the preliminary work of which lias been under way for some time. The clearing is designed to stop the flooding of large tracts of land which have suffered a good deal in recent years.

“That is a success,” said the Minister, when he saw the stump-puller at work. “1 would not like to compete against it with a grubber. Here the men are the masters. They are directing the machine.” The stump-puller is a new style of winch, giving a 900,0001 b direct pull on the drum! The machine is anchored by steel hawsers to a stump and the hauling wire—one inch and a half in diameter and capable of standing a strain of 60 tons, —is for the heavier jobs, run through heavy steel blocks, purchase being obtained from linking the wire with another stump. At Allenton, the bed of the river is half a mile wide and is covered with willows. The trees have been l topped here and also further up, near the confluence of the north and south branches, where 40 men are employed, and the machine will work over the whole of the area. The widening and clearing of the bed are expected" to take 18 months.

Work at SUrrey Hills. Three angle-dozers working as bulldozers, on the Rangitata diversion race at Surrey Hills, gave the Minister and the accompanying party of engineers a demonstration of the power and speed of modern machinery in carrying out work which would be laborious for a small army of men. The race is now being cut along the [Surrey Hills through the property of Mr A. N. Grigg, M.P., and the bulldozers, working three shifts a day, are going ahead so swiftly with the benching that the surveyors are having difficulty in moving ahead of them. On the hill face, deep grass and earth were being cut out by the bulldozers and rolled to the lower markings of the race wall, with the precision of a baker making a sponge roll. Each scooping by the machines shifted 10 tons of earth. Up and down hill the bulldozers moved, not losing any of their speed or capacity for shifting material as they cut down into the softer earth.

I Every day each bulldozer is shifting 9000 yards of earth. These oversized grader-tractors are working for 21 hours daily, an hour being used at the end of each shift lor adjustments and refuelling. They cut the race to a depth beyond which they cannot be worked, and the elevating graders and draglines are then brought into operation. Cutting the race by man labour would have entailed the employment of 1000 men for 10 years. The machines have been working now for 18 months and they will finish the construction of the 42 miles of race July, 1940. Operation of Plant. Figures were quoted by the engineers yesterday which prompted the Minister to remark that a complete answer was given the the critics of the economy of the use of the bulldozers. Heavy depreciation is allowed on the machine, 25 per cent, being made for one shift annually. Working three shifts daily, the machine will have paid for their cost in a year and four months. One machine which has worked! this period is still doing the volume of work carried! by the* new machines.

“The bulldozers and angle-dozers are wonderful assets,” said Mr Semple. “By keeping them in good repair we can double their economical life. All the machines are regularly overhauled at the fitting shop at Temuka, and that is the reason why they are proving such a good investment.” A work such as the Rangitata diversion could not have been tackled with the old methods of labouring, he said. The cost would have been prohibitive, and the present farmers would be dead before the water reached their farms and their successors would have dropped dead on receiving their bill tor water.

By using machines, 2,900.000 yards of material would be shifted in record time for any country outside of America.