THE HARVESTER AND BINDER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1374, 30 March 1878, Page 20

THE HARVESTER AND BINDER.

Our Victorian and New South Wales contemporaries have got energetically into discussions upon harvesting machinery, the machine at issue being the Wood harvester and binder. We do not intend' entering upon the subject. Discussion could but distract attention, and our opinions, backed by reasons and the results of what we have seen the machine do in the fields, have been given. In careful hands such as those who managed it at the Warwick Reserve, the harvester does good work, and does it well. But the machine requires careful handling — it requires the talent of a skilled mechanic, rather than a farm labourer. Such, indeed, is the tendenoy of farm work generally, and in the old land the men who do farm work and handle the machinery now-a-days are more mechanics than labourers. In such hands, the harvester will be successful ; with less care it runs much risk of being condemned, because there are weak parts found in it, as there are in all machines. In this connection, we should like to see the course adopted of securing competent judges for machinery at our exhibitions, who would give written reasons for the decisions made, and written opinions of the machines. — Quecnqlander.