YOUNG FARMERS’ CLUBS LOOK AT INDUSTRY

Press, Volume C, Issue 29637, 6 October 1961, Page 3

YOUNG FARMERS’ CLUBS LOOK AT INDUSTRY

Young Farmers’ Club field days are usually held on farms or in the country to inspect some new machine or farming technique: but yesterday the Christchurch district branches combined to take in a new field—that of secondary industry. During the day the party visited a factory assembling and producing farm and earth-moving equipment, a tyre factory and a general foundry and engineering firm. The host club this year was the Avon club, which makes a practice of holding several functions each year which involve activities outside farming. At the International Harvester Company factory at Sockburn the range of equipment on display covered a wide field. A huge 300 horsepower shovel loader with tyres that dwarfed a man was intended for heavy earth moving, while in the next bay a small tractor-like unit had been assembled and was ready to go to some airport where it would be used for pulling aircraft. On the farming side, there were tractors of all sizes and a range of headers. One header had been built in France, another in America, and another in Australia. Quite a lot of interest was taken also in a new model of a heavy-duty truck which was designed and built in Australia for the requirements of the Australian Army. These are being imported from Australia. With agricultural machinery imported from overseas, one of the main functions of the company was to ensure that adequate spare parts were held in stock, one of the staff members said. It was quite common for requests to be made for spares to fit a machine which might have been built 20 or 30 years ago.

After lunch the party visited the Firestone tyre factory at Papanui and saw the whole process of making tyres and tubes. Bags of pigments, bales of raw rubber, and chemicals were unloaded from the rail, at one end of the factory and the finished tyres were loaded into other railway waggons at the other end.

Out of the company's daily production of about 1300 tyres only 0.1 per an average of only three tyres every two days—had to be rejected, a company staff member told one of the groups of visitors. The standard of inspection was high, but the efficiency of production was as good as could be expected anywhere. The Young Farmers’ Club movement has done a lot of farm safety promotion in recent years, and several of the party commented on the large notice board which was prominently displayed in the factory. This carried a slogan: “Let’s make this another injury-free month” and a notice said that it was 83 days since there had been an injury in the factory. As a momento. a miniature rubber tractor tyre holding a central ashtray was given to each member of the party. Stainless steel butter

churns, boilers, and the sole plates for electric irons were among the items being manufactured at the foundry of Andersons, Ltd., at Woolston, which was the final visit for the day. In the main building a machine for drying and cooking blood was being constructed for the Alliance freezing works in Southland, and in another part trailer couplings were being heat treated.

One of the most impressive machines was a gear cutting mill which was quietly gnawing out teeth on the rim of a huge casting which looked about 10ft across. This was for the main drive of a butter churn.