MISCELLANEOUS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 270, 15 March 1877, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

REAPING AND Bf.VDt>*o MACHINE. The trials of the competing reaping and binding machines in Victoria for tlie Government reward of £ISOO, which took place under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, did not turn out to be satisfactory. In the two machines last tried the cause of failure was that the arras which bind the sheaf released their grip before the string was fastened instead of after. The inventors hope to produce more satisfactory results next year. Meantime, a machine imported from A me- ' rica, by Messrs. Watson and Monro, was tried last week near Kyneton, and did its work remarkably well. The reaper, which is known as the " Marsh Harvester," i 3 no better than other reaping machines in ordinary use, but the binding apparatus attached seems to have solved the problem of a purely automatic binder. The trial was made on the side of a hill among tree stamps, and was consequently rather a severe one, but the farmers present were satisfied with the way in which the machine did its work. It is drawn by two I horses, and with a man to drive and a i couple of lads to set np the stooks, it will enable a farmer to harvest his crops at the rate of twenty acres a day, and thus render him independent of harvest men, whose exorbitant demands for wages press so heavily on the farmer, who is often entirely at their mercy. The wire for binding costs about one shilling per I acre.