SAVING THE FARMER

Taranaki Daily News, 29 October 1935, Page 12

SAVING THE FARMER

INVENTION BY A SCOTSMAN.

NEW METHOD OF HARROWING.

I have been interested recently in watching another new method of harvesting by tripod—a plan by which for a modest outlay hay and corn can be gathered in better condition in the wet season, writes the agricultural correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. It is likely to appeal particularly to farmers in the wetter districts of Britain who do not wish to face the expense of combine-harvesters or reaperelevators and drying plants. The tripods, made of metal, are set up at intervals in the field. Almost immediately after cutting the hay or corn is built around the tripods in the form of the “pooks” and “stocks” familiar to farmers in Ireland or the North of England.

A ring of wire round the bottom of the tripod keeps the crop off the ground —preventing waste from damp or discoloration—and pieces of sheet-iron allow three air-vents to be made in each pook. The air circulates freely and the hay, dried without weathering, retains much of its natural colour and sweetness and more of its nutritive value. The pooks are built high and narrow, so that if rain come? it tends to run off. When the time comes for removing the pooks for ricking or threshing a special attachment to a tractor removes them bodily, two at a time, and takes them to the rick. Twenty acres a day can be cleared by one tractor by this means. The system was invented by a Scot, Mr. Alexander Proctor, and gained a £lOO prize at the Highland Show. It was tried with success on the King’s farms at Sandringham and on the Ford farms at Dagenham, where the wheat harvested in this way fetched 6s a quarter more than the wheat off seven acres of the same farm harvested in the ordinary way.