Teaching Farm Mechanics

North Canterbury Gazette, Volume 7, Issue 59, 26 November 1937, Page 7

Teaching Farm Mechanics

MANSION CONVERTED TO ENGINEERING INSTITUTE

When, as so often happens nowadays in England, an old agricultural estate is broken up, the utilisation of the mansion always presents a problem. It has been well solved at Boreham, near Chelmsford, the property which was acquired for the mechanised farming activities of Fordson Estates, Ltd. How it has been done was shown at the opening of the Henry Ford Institute of Agricultural Engineering. The mansion has been fully equipped for giving instructional courses, not only in tractor use and maintenance, but also in the use of the new power farming machines such as combines and crop driers. There will be short courses, normally of a fortnight, for farmers and their sons and workers, and other courses for dealers’ mechanics and salesmen. The idea is to teach engineering to the farmers and farming to tile engineers. The Institute will be under the control of Mr E. B. Black, B.Sc., as principal. At the opening lunch Dr Denham, of the Oxford Institute for ltesearch in Agricultural Engineering, said Mr Black had been senior Research Officer at the Institute for the past eleven years. While they regretted losing him at Oxford, he knew no one better qualified to fill the position at Boreham.