FORTY SECONDS TO DRY HAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 263, 6 November 1929, Page 21

FORTY SECONDS TO DRY HAY.

A method of drying hay in forty seconds has been devised in America. The plant involved takes the form of an outfit, approximately 50ft in height and 200 ft in length, and dries about 5 tons of hay an hour. It reduces the moisture content from 50 per cent or more down to 10 or less, and chops the hay into a readily available form. The drier is described in "The Prairie Farmer" as an invention of a Louisiana farmer, Arthur W. Koon. Its heat is created by a huge furnace that burn's the cheapest grade of coal. One pound of coal drives off about 101b of water, and the automatic stoker sends 500 to 8001b of coal an hour into the fire box. The power for the blowers and drive shafts is furnished by three motors that generate approximately 175 h.p. The hay is unloaded at the mouth of tho drier with an ordinary hay fork operated by a power winch. It is then fed through a silage cutter and cut into %-inch lengths. The blower from the cutter shoots the hay into a big condenser, where the first heat strikes it. It is then fed through six different condensers and a series of pipes about 1500 ft in total length, until it has been through a temperature of approximately 700 degrees F., and is thoroughly dried. The entire process takes about forty seconds from the time the wet hay goes in until the powder-dry hay comes out the other end, and is sacked. It is planned to carry tho pipe from the drier directly to the mow of one of the big dairy barns.

"This drier does just what we want, and have wanted for a long time," says Howard T. Green, farm manager. "The cost of the drier is many thousand dollars, but this is the first one, and still in the experimental stage. We don't know how much it costs yet to dry hay. We run this night and day now, using two shifts, and plan - to continue operating it all summer. At the present time it looks as though such a drier might be used by a co-operative group of farmers. We don't know a lot about the processes which go on in the drier. We know that hay does not burn because there is no oxygen. We .cannot find any evidence that the fumes from the motor exhausts and from the furnace are detrimental to the hay. If the theory of the explosion of puffed grains is true, it is likely that the same thing takes place in the fibres of the hay. It is constantly subjected to high wind pressure, and then vacuums along with the heat, and when it comes out it is almost pre-digested. Our cows are crazy for it."