Vintage Machinery Parade

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 22

Vintage Machinery Parade

A static display and a parade of vintage machinery will be among the most interesting facets of the centennial show at Rangiora during the next two days. Longdiscarded pieces of farm mach-

inery have been resurrected from almost forgotten resting places in plantations, from under bluegum trees, and one piece had served as a “stop gap" in a fence. Some of the equipment has

continued to give service right to the present time, but much work has gone to restoring most of it. Enthusiasm has been stimulated by a firm sponsoring a prize for the best restored piece of

machinery exhibited by an individual. For machines to qualify for this competition they must have been manufacture before 1931. The aim of the vintage display has been to provide a basically wide selection, that will adequately portray the developments that have taken place with increasing mechanisation. Traction Engine Traction engines always excite the imagination of young boys, and many not so young, and one of these engines with a wooden mill will be among the most fascinating exhibits. Some of the pieces are of types probably not known to the modern generation, however. The display will Include early examples of single and double furrow horse ploughs: time harrows manufactured locally about the 1870 s, broadcast seed boxes, the forerunners of modern drills: early grubbers; primitive tractors: a bean hoe (beans were once an important crop in the Coldstream area, being produced mainly as food for horses); early reapers and binders: and a hot-air engine, once used for pumping water. In all, it is a list too long too enumerate, but the selection has been made to give a good indication of a century of progress. This aspect should be emphasised when the equipment is paraded around the ring, with the modern versions interspersed with the old.