PERFORMANCE OF MOWER

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29001, 16 September 1959, Page 21

PERFORMANCE OF MOWER

“Impossible Acreage Claimed” The 1955 experimental mower could not have given anything like the performance claimed for it by Pyramid Machines, Ltd.. Mr R. A. Young submitted when he continued his address on behalf of W. H. Price and Son, Ltd., during the mower dispute hearing in the Supreme Court yesterday. One of the most important matters his Honour would have to consider was whether the 1955 experimental mower was fully and adequately field-tested and whether the results of the fieldtesting had been conveyed to Price and Son, said Mr Young. “As the trial progressed it seemed that this particular mower had returned rather a phenomenal performance while the other mowers made to the same pattern with improvements had failed in the field in November, 1955.” he added. From April this year a major issue in the case had been whether the machine had performed in the way represented by the plaintiffs. Latimer (one of the plaintiffs) had sold mowers at the A. and P. Show knowing they had not been field-tested; immediately afterwards he had written letters indicating that only manufacturing difficulties were holding up the supply of the mowers to farmers “It may be that to him fieldtesting was just something that delayed the financial yield that he and his associates hoped to get out of this venture,” said counsel.

As the case had progressed it had become increasingly apparent that it would have been impossible, because of the number of breakages and the evidence of the amount of cutting that could be done in any one day, for 500 acres to have been mown by the machine in three weeks.

Mr Young submitted, that the mower could not have mown anything like 500 acres, that in truth it had required considerable repairs, and that its performance was nothing like what Latimer had represented it to be.