DEVELOPMENT OF FARM POWER IN CANTERBURY

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32143, 12 November 1969, Page 36

DEVELOPMENT OF FARM POWER IN CANTERBURY

by

C. J. CROSBIE,

agricultural engineering advisory officer. Department

of Agriculture, Christchurch)

You may think you know what a horse-power is, but have you ever seen one? If you think it is one of the series of little what’sits that are chained up under the bonnet of your motor car then this would meet today’s definition.

But, over 100 years ago a horse-power was something entirely different and there will be one at the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association show this week.

It is just one of the many Interesting exhibits illustrating “Farm Power Through the Ages”—a display arranged by the Society of Rural History for the Ferrymead Museum of Science and Industry. Bullocks provided the first form of motive power put to work on a Canterbury farm in 1840 when Malcolm McKinnon and associates ploughed 30 acres at Riccarton and planted them in wheat, oats and barley. Because of a series of misfortunes, this settlement was abandoned but when the Deans Brothers arrived in 1843, they brought three horses and reploughed some of the original area and sowed six acres of grain. But, the importance of hand power in those early days when the settlers had few implements and few horses and bullocks to pull them, is shown in John Deans’s writings of February 17, 1851, when he said: “We intend breaking up a large extent of ground this winter ... and if labourers' wages are moderate, we will probably get 30 or 40 acres dug with the spade in parts which are rather rough for ploughing well.” In those early days hand power was used to harvest the grain crops with reaping hooks and scythes. Threshing was done with a flail and the wheat was ground for flour in a hand mill—the Deans Brothers recorded

that theirs was ground about 401 b per hour. However, at that time horse powers were used in England for driving threshing machines and Sir Thomas Tancred wrote to John Deans on August 12, 1852, asking if he should bring out with him a 2-horse threshing machine and a hand-winnowing machine. Actually, a 4-horsepower threshing machine had been brought out in 1850 on the Sir George Seymour by Mr C. J. Wentworth-Cookson “and a most unfortunate white elephant it proved to me” he wrote some six years later. “It lay on Cookson and Bowlers wharf exposed to the scorching summer’s sun and winter’s merciless south-westers while the wharfage account kept rolling up until I wished it at the bottom of the Lyttelton Harbour.” He sold it to a Mr Edward Ashby for about one-third of its cost The horse power on display at the show was made by Cambridge and Parnam Engineers of Bristol, and has been permanently loaned to the Science Museum by Mr Godfrey Hall, Terrace Station, Hororata, where the unit was originally used. This machine, more than 100 years old when found, was heavily rusted; the bearings were frozen up with rust, and tree roots were growing through the frame. Today it has been fully restored by the Society of Rural History, repainted and the movement operates with only finger-tip pressure. Water Power After a trip to Scotland, John Deans landed in Lyttelton in February, 1853, from the ship “Fanny,” a water power threshing mill. with an iron water wheel by Taylor of Ayre which was set in the stream on his property (the site is in the grounds of the present Christchurch Boys’ High School) and a brick barn was built to house the at threshing mill. Although the dam broke away from its banks three times, by the end of the year, he wrote: “We have overcome it at last and it answers uncommonly well. Nobody here seems ever to have seen a threshing machine of the kind. Those in general use here are small portable ones driven by oxen and we can thresh as much in two hours as they can do in a whole day and with fewer hands.” At this stage of Canterbury’s development, the threshing mill separated the grain from the heads of the crop and the grain was either winnowed by hand or put through a winnowing machine. Later when more power was available as a result of the application of stream power to agriculture, the threshing mill and the winnower were built as one machine—the “combine” or “threshing combine”—later to be known as a “mill.” One of the first portable steam engines was that

owned by Osborne and Rennie at Prebbleton in 1865. This type of steam engine was pulled by horses from farm to farm to power the

mill. A 4 h.p. Brown and May portable steam engine built in 1901 will be on display as will a vertical steam engine and boiler, both made by Anderson about the turn of the century. The “Big Mill” However, with the advent of the steam traction engine, threshing combines could be made larger and the “big mill" made its appearance. It was in 1878 for the first time that the records of the Canterbury A. and P. Association show that Messrs Morrow, Bassett and Company exhibited at that year’s show a “Hornsby" steam engine and combine —the unit selling for £570. In that year John Anderson also exhibited an agricultural locomotive (not named) but three years later it is recorded that he exhibited an “Aveling add Porter” 8 h.p. traction engine with rope, winding drum and water lifter for £460. Traction engines, together with the big mill, became the standard threshing units in Canterbury. The power developed by a steam engine often amazes the uninitiated when the small figures quoted are related to its ability to do work. Traction engine horsepower was assessed on the number of horses the particular engine would replace. The modem formula for calculating horsepower gives an 8 h.p. traction engine a rating of 65 h.p. on the belt, up to 200 h.p. on tie drawbar and about 300 h.p. on the winch. About the turn of the century the gas engines, oil engines and, later, the petrol engines made their appearance and were welcomed by the farming community as a source of power for the smaller machines—water pumps, milking machines, chaff cutters, feed grinders, shearing machines and the like. Many engines survive from this period and names like “Associited,” “White,” “Warwick,” “Blackstone,” “Mogul” and “Lister” can be recalled by present-day elderly farmers. , First Diesels In 1929, Lister made its first diesel engine (“dual combustion chamber and hand start”) and one of these engines will be on display. So popular were these English and American engines which range in size from 2 h.p. to about 12 h.p. and were available as stationary models or portable on a sledge base or a horsedrawn wheeled chassis that Booth Macdonald and Company in their 1913 catalogue were able to report “We have sold upwards of 1000 White Benzine Engines in New Zealand during the last 10 or 12 years, mpst of which are still in active service.” It was in 1892, that the first successful farm gasoline tractors were built in the United States. After the turn of the century mapy

makes were on the market there, production had started in England, and they were soon at work in Canterbury. Mr D. L. Rutherford recalls a tractor at work at Leslie Hills in 1906-1907. It was a three-wheeled Sanderson from England—a few of which had been imported by a Leeston farmer. It pulled two 3-furrow lever ploughs but was replaced in 1910-1911 with a later model Sanderson equipped with a differential lock and a highlow ratio gearbox. This latter tractor once raced and passed the Hanmer bus at the remarkable speed of 16 m.p.h. The year 1911, saw, too, the introduction of the Titan tractors by the International Harvester Company, one of the early models being purchased by Messrs Johns Brothers, of Fernside, for £6OO. It had only one speed in either forward or reverse gear—24 m.p.h. Marly Exhibits The first recorded history of the appearance of tractors at the Canterbury A. and P. Show was in 1913 when H. Anderson of Hereford. Street exhibited the 24 h.p. Ivel tractor and obtained a certificate of merit In 1916 T. and S. Morrin, Ltd, was awarded the Gold Medal for their Samson Sieve-Grip tractor, while in 1918 Dexter and Crozier, Ltd, obtained the Gold Medal with their Cleveland farm tractor. The Canterbury Motor Company, Ltd, exhibited the Fordson tractor at the 1919 Show, together with John Chambers and Sons Ltd’s Case 10-18 h.p. tractor. Messrs Andrews and Beaven Ltd obtained the Gold Medal in 1922 'with the 32 h.p. Peterbro tractor which drew four furrows, or two iodise harrows. In 1919 the first census in New Zealand of farm tractors was taken to reveal a total of 136, of which 58 were located in the South Island. Thirteen were in North Canterbury, 10 in the Christchurch area, 11 in MidCanterbury and six in South Canterbury. (In 1968 there were 93,688 tractors in New Zealand.) The veteran tractor in the Science Museum’s display this year is a 1924 crossengine Case 12-20 h.p. and is displayed by the New Zealand Case Tractor and Farm Machinery Club. Electric Power Coleridge power house first generated electric power in 1914 and in March, 1915, Christchurch City was connected, and thereafter rural reticulation began. However, until they could be connected to the national grid, many farmers preferred to generate their own electricity—by pelton wheels where water pressure was available in the foothill country, by water wheels in

races on the plains (the undershot water wheel in the display was used to generate 110 volts of electric power for the house on the property of Mr J. E. Bums, near Oxford, until 1928) and by a diesel or petrol enginegenerator set One of these latter sets will also be on display. To complete the display of the progress of farm power on Canterbury farms, there will be on display a modem farm tractor of the large type (91 h.p.) currently making an impact on agriculture. Compared with the vet eran tractor built over forty years ago, the present mach-

ine incorporates pneumatic tyres, a diesel engine, electric starting and lights, continuous hydraulic power, three point linkage with snap on couplings, provision for a remote hydraulic ram, power clutch for high and low ratio gears and power shift rear wheels for row crop work. It also supplies hydraulic power via long hoses to a hydraulic motor fitted to power a grain auger —the latest type of power to be used in agriculture. Canterbury has come a long way since 1840 when Malcolm McKinnon ploughed the first furrow here with bullock power.