FARM MACHINERY

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23086, 31 July 1940, Page 13

FARM MACHINERY

NOTABLE EXPANSION BIG TRACTOR INCREASE The increase in the number of power machines has been one of the notable developments in Canterbury agriculture in recent years. Mechanical harvesters have not yet reached the stage when their numbers entitle them to a special column in the statistics, but a careful calculation puts the proportion of the Canterbury crop threshed by them last season at more than 60 per cent. The figures, however, are available for agricultural tractors. As at January 31, 1939, the total in the Dominion was 9639, close on 3000 of them in Canterbury. The increase on the preceding year was 1609. The 1938 increase on 1937 was 1146 in the total of 8030. In 1935 the total in the Dominion was 5349. The 'foregoing figures provide some idea of the extent to which modern machinery is absorbing the work of the farm. The number of tractors should give a tremendous elasticity to the country’s cropping programme if properly marshalled for the purpose and worked to reasonable capacity. It is to be feared that many of them are not so used, as beyond a mild degree of the principle o'f "neighbouring,” tractors live most of their lives on the home farm. In time of emergency the use of (he power could be better distributed. The tractor has had its useful counterpart in the header harvester. Even farmers who had experience of the header in Australia doubted whether its utility could be so pronounced in New Zealand. The moister climate and the heavier crops, it was claimed, would restrict the header to only the lightest lands. This opinion was held by 90 per cent, of farmers 10 or 12 years ago. To-day it is probable that these percentages could be reversed. The machine has shown its capacity to handle heavy as well as light crops, lodged as well as upright, and tangled as well as unbroken. In the earlier stages of the header’s use in this province .insufficient attention was paid to the handling of the headed grain, but a better understanding of the machine and the greater use of wind-resistant varieties of wheat like Tuscan and Cross 7 have minimised any dangers attached to holding the crop for heading, and to-day not much is heard about out of condition headed wheat, unless it has been rushed prematurely to the flour mill after heading. There was a “grow more wheat” campaign towards the end of the last war, when farm staffs had been heavily depleted by the call for fighting men, when power was provided only by the team, and when the header was unheard of. Farmers of to-day who look back on that time realise that those “good old days” were not just as good as they are to-day for big production.