One-Man Power

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXII, Issue 249, 20 August 1928, Page 3

One-Man Power

WORKING DAY AND NIGHT We published not long ago, states the “C.N.” (edited by Arthur Moc), what we described as a proud challenge from Western Australia, reading: “In no other part of the world does human efficiency attain such proportions as in Western Australia, where one man will plough, seed, and harvest 300 acres of wheat entirely by himself.” We asked whether that challenge could be sustained.

Mr. St. Clare Grondona, a well-known Australian author, sends us these notes. One man driving fourteen horses can control a ten-furrow plough, which in loose soil will turn over ten acres a day. He rides on the plough, and all adjusting apparatus is within easy reach of his hand. When harrowing, as many as fourteen horses are driven abreast, and one man has actually harrowed o hundred acres between daylight and dark. Other agricultural work is carried out with similar labour-saving devices. AN AUSTRALIAN INVENTION

The sowing is done by horse-drawn drills, and the artificial fertiliser is run through the drill with the wheat. The efficient farmer sows his wheat with a combined cultivator and seed drill.

At harvest the grain is gathered by a huge machine known as a combination header harvester, an Australian invention. Only the cars are cut off the standing wheat by a contrivance stretching from six to twelve feet into the crop. The grain, with its mixture of.husks, is conveyed to the winnowing and cleaning drums which form part of the vehicle. The husks are broadcast, and the grain, then ready for market, falls into a tank, from which it is either poured into bags or handley in bulk. In New South Wales last year one man took 300 bags of wheat in a day; and 300 bags of wheat would be sufficient to make 10,000 four-pound loaves.

Ono man can harvest 25 acres a day, so that he could take off the grain from a. three-hundrcd-acro crop single handed in a fortnight. The stray is afterwards burned off. ROOM FOR EXPANSION

On very large farms work is often carried on through the night, motor head-lamps being used. Three shifts of horses and men are then engaged.

But Western Australians must not claim, that this amount of work can be done only in that State. Similar acerages are ploughed and harvested in the mallee districts of Victoria, Now South Wales, and South Australia. There are 200 million acres of wheatgrowing land in Australia, though not more than 13 million acres have yet been cropped in any one year. There is, therefore, room for expansion in this wonderful industry.