METHODS IN 1960

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23338, 5 May 1939, Page 16

METHODS IN 1960

USE OF TRACTOR POWER CONTROL BY WIRELESS Farming methods likely to be employed by 1960 will stagger the imagination, says an overseas exchange. Even now, in 1939, science and agriculture are getting into step for a march into what authorities believe to be a golden era of unprecedented progress. The next 20 to 25 years will witness the greatest transition in farm life in all history. The farmer of 1960 will, it is predicted, use tractor power exclusively in his fields. He will not even have to operate the tractors. They will be automatically controlled by short-wave radio from a central point. He will prepare his soil for crops with one operation. He will use combination "bulldozers" that will clear the land and plough, disc, harrow and possibly sow at the some time. Even the land itself will be different. The farmer of the future will use fertilisers not yet invented, which will add immeasurably to production and to the nutritive quality of the crops grown. It is possible that he will use soil sterilisation on a large scale to control injurious insects, and may employ electrical discharges from cultivating machines for this purpose. The crops of the future will not require to he touched by hand until 'they are presented to the housewife in an edible form. And all this is, perhaps, only 20 years away.