AIRCRAFT FOR THE FARM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17145, 26 April 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

AIRCRAFT FOR THE FARM.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE.

There 'a no doubt that aeroplanes) are going to be used extensively in the future development of agriculture, says a writer in a London paper. The news that many new and secondland R.A.P. machines are being bought up by overseas ex-flying men corroborates previous reports from the Dominions, that aircraft are of the utmost value ifl farming large tracts of country. Where there are wire stretches .of agricultural > land and only the most primitive and inadequate forms of transport exist, the annihilation of distance is a financial asset that cannot be ignored. It may be some time before agricultural produce will bo carried by air (to the nearest rail with any prospect of commercial advantage, but in the meantime there are many ways in which aircraft are and will be of service. Farmers of stock in a large way have found that they can visit their flocks of sheep, cattle and horses and ascertain the conditions of crops in outlying districts by aeroplane, in a fraction of the lime that* it would take to dri\e round. ( . There is ranch practical farming that will be done from" aircraft. In the spring, for instance, instead of carte and horses passing over the heavy wet ground, an aeroplane, wfth seed-boxes under the lower planes, will sweep over the fields and sow the ready earth. In two or three hours it will accomplish what a horse and cart would . take three or" four days to do. Again, tanks will be carried for watering purposes, thus providing a real shower fr**. ihe air and distributing water without damage to the growing crops. The sprinkling of weed-killing fluids in the same way is another obvious advantage that the plane has over other methods. Tie loneliness of widely separated farms will be quite altered, and tie prospect of going "hack to Hie land" is distinctly enhanced by being ablej to go up> in the air. I