Twenty-Year Old Cars Are Still In Use on Farms

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18901, 31 December 1935, Page 11

Twenty-Year Old Cars Are Still In Use on Farms

MUCH Ims been written in British farming journals in recent years regarding the value of pneumatic tyres on farm vehicles, particularly on tractors,,and the value of this innovation is now being fully realised on :. number of Hawke's hay flatlaiid properties. While io date very few tractors in use on farms in the province have beeii fitted with pneumatic tyres, iu numbers of cases farmers have had special low drays constructed to carry truck wheels and tyres. This innovation has thoroughly justified itself, for it; has been found tnat a dray equipped with pneumatic tyres is capable of handling heavy loads with Jess .strain on the horse or horses, and far less fear of bogging on soft ground. A fanner who utilised one of these drays for the whole of last winter in the carting out of mangolds, ensilage and hay, stated that he considered that it had paid for itself over the one winter in the lessened work for the horses and the avoidance of ploughing up in the vicinity of gateways daring the wot months.

Tins farmer stated that he was of the opinion, after using a rubber-tyred dray for one season, that a horse was capable of pulling a 50 per cent, greater weight in this class of dray than in the ordinary iron-tyred variety. He. stated that, before next winter it was his intension to convert his remaining iron-tyred dray for the wo of pneumatic tyres. General Work In Paddocks.

Another interesting feature; of fltitland farming activities in Hawke's Bay this spring has been in the use made of motor cars and trucks of ancient vintage for general work about the paddocks. The use of a car to pull light harrows and spread stock droppings has been quite a common practice on a number of farms around the flats for some years, but a more recent development has been the purchasing of cars of reliable make which have seen their best days on the road, fitting strengthened differentials, and in other ways adapting them for doing the work of a light tractor. In the majority of cases these veterans of the road are giving excellent service in their new capacity. On a farm in the Havelock district last week a 15 horse-power English car, which had been regarded as tho very latest and smartest thing on the road away back about 191:1, was pressed into service to pull a Held mower through a typical mixed pasture, carrying a growth suitable only for ensilage, and it made a remarkably good showing. Low gear was employed for the bulk of the work, but it, was possible to change up to second on the easier stretches.—Telegraph.