CHAFF-CUTTING.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1797, 12 January 1884, Page 2

CHAFF-CUTTING.

TO THE EDITOR. Siu, — You give a most flattering description of Mr Allwill's chaff-cutting machinery, made by Andrews and Bevan, of Christchurch. You &ay that it can cut a bag per minute, or 250 bag.s per day. Now, in justice to another colonial firm, Reid and Gray, of Dunedin and Auckland, allow me to say that with a 3^ h.p. vertical engine and a No. 2 Reid ami Gray chaff-cutter on sledges, I have cut heie 4G bags in 45 minutes, and over 200 bags in half a day, while I heard on Oamam farms that with a No. 1 Reid and Grey chaff-cutter and (5 h.p. portable engine, they cut 18 tons of chaff in a day. The price of the No. 2, which is big enough for any purpose and makes splendid chaff, is, I think, £16, and les than £2 would fix sieves to it. I will be glad to show anyone interested a cheaper and simpler way of attaching the sieves, than usual, and also to show om plan of bagging, which is not liable to get out of repair like the screw fan bag filler, of which farmers near Papatoitoi can give .some costly expeiience. You say that the Andrews and Bevan chaff-cutter costs " the low price of £05." Why, I would be glad of £105 for both my engine and chaffcutter, and equal to new, and throw in a threshing mill. You may say, why do you give up the chaff growing when you can grow three tons an acre at Piako and sell it at £5 or £0 per ton ? I reply that if the larks and yellow finches would spare the crop for a month after it was sown, if the weather was not so uncertain and labour ho scarce and inefficient, if the crop could be sent to market while there is plenty grass and no buyers, and the roads are good, either befoie orhnmediately after harvest, as the chairman of the Waitoa Road Board says, and not in winter when the roads are impassable and people perversely want chaff, if vermin did not destroy or the sudden deluges of rain so frequent here did not drown your stacks or drays when carting in to barn, if there was no other work to be done on the farm, or the land would not grow turnips, grabs, &c, instead of giain and son el and docks, if one could get paid for their chaff within a reasonable time, and after a reasonable number of applications, and if a man had a grown-up family and a small farm, I agree with you that the chaff business might be made very piofitable here. But having to depend .solely on hired help, and having far more land than I can profitably use, I am constrained to go in for stock and turnips, instead of grain, though I should be very pleased to see more settlers here and to sell them farms that will grow anything and only keep as much as I can rightly use ; for I find it is the greatest mistake to have more, no matter how good it is. — I am, &c, War. Abchd. Murhat. P.S. — I see it quoted from Home papera that many good working farmers would come heie if they knew they could buy or lease on terms farms and cows. This would, if it suited them, be most suitable to many of us farmers here, and be a great help to progress in the colony. What do we pay our Agent-General for if he does not look out for such things ? W. A. M. Piako, Jan. 7th, 1884.