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New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 5

The trial of Mr Douglas Dobson’s ditching, hanking, and road-making machine, says the Marlborough Express, recently imported by him from America, was a very great success. All the members of Omaka Road Board, Mr Maddock, Inspector of the Awatere Road Board, and Mr Donald were present. Four horses supplied by Mr Robt. Gregg, and driven by Mr John Gregg, were employed in the work, and Mr Dobson managed the machine himself. A start was made at ten o’clock, the work to be done being the forming of twelve chains of road, thirty feet in width, fully four chains of this being fairly smothered with rushes, which rendered the working of the machine much more difficult. The work was satisfactorily finished by half-past three, the actual working time of the machine being four hours, and everybody expressed themselves as perfectly satisfied and surprised with the result. We are credibly informed by those present that it would take a couple of first-class working men seven or eight days to do the same work in such a perfectly satisfactory manner.