ADRIANCE-PLATT NO. 8 GRASS MOWER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12857, 1 February 1913, Page 5

ADRIANCE-PLATT NO. 8 GRASS MOWER.

DEMONSTRATION AT WESTMERE

■GREAT SUCCESS

'■ DEATH ON THISTLES

(By A PRACTICAL FARMER.)

This improvement is called a "grassmower," but if you had seen it at work, as I did;r t-he other day, slashing and cutting land making war upon Scotch thistles up to oft high, you would have put jt down as a battle chariot: This machine was really built to be of allround service to the agricultural farmer. Down near Pahnerston North it cut an area of about' one hundred acres of rushes. On Mr. J. Robbs' place at W^tsmere, Wahganui, it reaped with the greatest despatch 33 acres of thistles. Mr Robb assured me that~he only sharpened the kn^fe once during the work. • 1 happen to know a little of the sub-conscious anxiety of a farmer during hay cutting time. The operator starts in great style, and the stuff fialls as from the sword of a- swashbuckler, but presently there is a snap, and a crack, and the whirring song of the mower is silenced. You rush off and catch a horse and gallop to the blacksmith's. As likely as not the mended part breaks a second time/and you haul out the mower to one side, swear a bit, jump on yc^ir horse and hunt round among your neighbours for another machine. This was the experience of two of my neighbours this season, and in. both cases their hay cutting was greatly deLayed. lam not writing to cry down od crack up, but when I see the strong build and the rapid and efficient work of this comparatively newly introduced Adriance-Platt mower, I certainly [smj it's well deserving of being brought under the notice of farmers. When I was asked to go and have a look at the implement, I naturally thought of. a hay and clover paddock, but a paddock, aye, paddocks of Scotsmen being levelled to the ground with ease and yiespateh, wais something inovel. This; implement is of American make, i hut it gave me the impression that the j Yanks are putting greater strength into their newer agricultural creations. I This 'machine is named the AdrLancePlatt No- 8 grass mower. It has some ; new features about its mechanism. One is a sort of recoil spring on the draught so that, in case of bumps or jars, the implement will not be subjected to a detrimental shock or the driver unseated, as has sometimes happened. The general strength of the mower greatlj commends it for a rough and new couni try ilike ours. Mr Robb, who was ! working the implement?, assured me thai in. all his experience of mowers he had never, j worked ' one that had given so much satisfaction^ Jt is only eonu two .years' since the first package oi . the ; A'drianee-PlatW mower landed, ii the l^qminion, an(^^;ol-show that it U taking: with fanners, over 90 package have followed^ |js^|^(!|siii- Burgess, oi Palmerston North, is the "agent for th« island. I understand that -v.s mowei had a severe test put to it in cutting j down rushes in the vicinity of Palmer ; ston North, and that so far, in all th< i tests it ha« undergone in thick hay j high thistles or rank rushes, not i i single section breakage l >"<- taken -^inee ' The Adriance-Platt mower is msytfufae- ' tured at Ploughkeepsie, New York. Th< writer, .-as a small farmer, has no hesi (1 tation—afttr inspecting the .implenuxr ''at work and listening: rto &h.<HtC>.-t(YiT3:i-[of Mr J. Rnbb^pf; ihti C^lhge, West i'niore—in highly, t-onamendije^ i tbisi Ii re 'j coiitly, introduced gram i dci'tttvr > Mo) :h ', fav'9ufab!e consideration of■ ocricultut1 | ists and dairy farmers generally.