LOCAL INVENTOR OF FARM EQUIPMENT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29401, 31 December 1960, Page 9

LOCAL INVENTOR OF FARM EQUIPMENT

POR 55 years Mr J. E. Holland, 1 of Avoca Valley, has been inventing farm equipment. The latest invention he is perfecting is one aimed at giving farmers greater safety on hill country.

Mr Holland has constructed a model of a wheeled trailer which, when the weight begins to overrun, retracts its wheels and rests on sledge runners. For additional braking action there are two “sprags” which can be set to dig into the ground if necessary. This, he believes; could give the farmer protection from trailers "jack-knifing” or causing tractors to go out of control by over-running. In 1905 he applied for his first provisional patent to cover a revolving knife to divide tangled crops when they were being mown. Since then he has made dozens of applications for provisional protection and of these many were worthy of being fully patented. In 1924 a chain flail type harvester was patented and shown at the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s show. It was regarded as a master patent—one which involved an entirely new and novel principle —and the anti-wheelwise movement of the chain flails was the opposite to the more orthodox beater drums used on existing grass seed strippers. The wheelwise direction had the effect of driving the material being harvested against the ground and much seed was lost but turning the drum the opposite way had a lifting effect. The chain flail principle is being used today as a special pick-up attachment for headers.

Mr Holland recalls that during the war an English firm constructed a chqin flail device which was attached to the front of tanks to clear minefields. Their machine was originally turned wheel wise but was changed to the opposite direction after a mine was thrown under the tank with disastrous results. Mr Holland’s- chain flail was built into strippers by Booth Macdonald and Company, Ltd., in Christchurch and some were exported to Australia, Britain and the United States. In the 20’s his pasture harrow for renovating pastures was tried out by Professor R. E. Alexander

at Lincoln College and was regarded as a great success. About the same time Mr Holland also Invented a claw harrow which was an early form of sub-soiling. Its low draught point and deep penetration gave a fierce action. “A set of harrows eight feet wide could anchor a six-horse team easily;” he says. The tines were independent and capable of individual adjustment. A gang plough which resembled a series of single furrow ploughs in echelon invented during the same period was designed to be operated in soil conditions where rocks would throw an ordinary plough out of the ground. This gang plough, however, would only throw the single unit that encountered the obstacle. >

The gang plough never went into production but as Mr Holland says: "It’s an idea which is still waiting for support from a firm that can see its value.” Over the last two years he has been wording on an. improved version of the claw harrow, with the aim of producing a machine which will do both sub-soil cultivation and ordinary grubbing. A scale model of this unit, which he has made, has its own type of lifting gear to operate off the hydraulic linkage of the tractor. Each tine is free to move up or down independently and has enough freedom to move laterally to prevent distortion damage if it strikes an obstacle.

This unit, which has penetrated up to 17 inches deep in a hard, dry farmyard, is capable of preparing land for ploughing that no plough could look at, Mr Holland says. The tines, which get their depth of penetration from their angle and the low draught height, can if necessary be linked together to form a rigid, framed grubber. Over the years the Holland inventions have earned a gold medal, four silver medals, and two certificates of merit at Christchurch shows. The gold medal was for a set of tandem disc harrows. At present Mr Holland is working on a ditch cleaning device and improvements to his drill coulter which he patented in 1941.