ROAD-MAKING MACHINE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2327, 16 January 1893, Page 2

ROAD-MAKING MACHINE.

Perhaps one remedy for the state of affairs referred to above is to employ labor-saving machinery as iar as possible. It will have been seen by the report oi the County Council meeting on Friday that it was decided tp make enquiry as to a road-making machine wbicb Councillor MoLean brought under notice. The following account from a Victorian paper, the Camperdown Chronicle, of the work done by the machine will, no doubt, interest settlers. Tbe cardinal advantages are reported to be firstly, the saving of labor ; secondly, the rapidity with which the work is carried out— over 20 chains a day, 36ft. wide, water tables 18in. deep; and thirdly, the uniformly good character of the formation. The inventors have evidently zeaiised tbat the object second to labor saving consisted in supplying strength so as to render breakage, with anytbing like reasonable useage, almost impossible, and this is borne out by the fact that though the machine at Sfcawell has been iv active work 12 months not a single part of it has been broken. The cost of the machine in full working order, equipped with four-horse swingletrees, &0., is £82. The Pleasant Creek News states in regard to test there that the 36 chains of machine-made road weve constructed in two and a half days, and the approximate cost was as follows : •H-Four horseß and driver, 2£ days' ploughing, at 32s per day, £4 ; ploughman, 2£ days at 7s per day, 17s 6d ; four horses and driver of machine, 2£ days at 32s per day, £4; man guiding the machine, 2£ days, at 7s per day, 17s 6d ; man removing roots, &c, 21 days, at 7s per day, 17s 6d ; total, £10 12s 6d. Tbis is a trifle under 6s per chain. Under Victorian usual specifications for this work with plough and scoops the tender price, would have been 16s per chain. The work done' by tbe machine was superior to tbat done by plough and scoops, being better graded.