ENTERPRISING COMPANIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 41, 9 February 1894, Page 19

ENTERPRISING COMPANIES.

Twenty years ago the firm of Messrs Ooomu and Black, engineers and lronfounders, Dunedin, utarted on part of their present lite in a ■mall way. confining themselves to making agricultural implements and doing general jobbing and repair work. Steady growth has, y however, characterised their advancement until now they have one of the best-equipped workshops and yards in Dunedin, having a frontsge to Crawford street of 210 feet and a depth of 200 feet Establishing at a very early date a connection with the goldfields! and realising the absolute necessity for the uae of the best hydraulic appliances to ensure the permanency and success of mining operation», they devoted a considerable amount of their meane, time, and attention, to perfecting these appliances and to further establishing »nd extending their connection with all the important mining companies in Central Otago. In proof of the superiority of these a company recently started on the West Coast, after having deputed experts to examine tbe various hydraulic appliances on the goldfields here, unreservedly placed the order for their hydraulic appliances with this firm. No better proof can be had of their superiority than the number of repeat orders daily received. The workshops are replete with every convenience. The fitting and turning shop con taing five turning and screw cutting lathee, planing, shaping, screw cutting, keyseating, drilling, and other machine-, their most recent addition being a radial vertical boring machine, having a 4ft 6in arm, whereby heavy casting or boilers can ba drilled without be.ng moved. The blacksmith shop contains four forges and reverbatory furnace steam hammer, and all the appliances necessary, for doing the heaviest class of work. Boilermakers 1 shop contains punching machines and rolls of various aiae*. suitable for the heaviest and lightest class of work. Special appliances (several of them being the firm's own dißign) are here in use for making flaming of a superior quality, large quantities of which they have and are continually making. The pattern shop adjoins the foundry, and has the usual equipment, including band and circular saws, turning lath, etc. The foundry is fully equipped with all the latest conveniences fordoing every class of work, from the heaviest to the lightest. There are two cupolas capable of melting four tons of metal per hour. Ample shed room for storage is at command. Whilst purchasing largely locally they find it necessary to import and keep in stock many lines of steel* iron, etc, for their own special requirement. A large brick store' apart from the main building, is devoted to the storage of patterns for almost every conceivable kind of work, and to which they are continually making additions. Having ample yard room and two heavy cranes, it greatly facilitates the handling and manipulating of heavy work. Whilst making a speciality of hydraulic and miuing requirements, they undertake all kinds of genera! engineering, blacksmithing and foundry work. They have and are now engaged in supplying machinery for flour mills and paper bag making, and recently compounded the engines of one of the steamers belonging to the Lake Wakatipu 8.8. Co. fleet, and mads a turbine for another firm, 6 feet deep 200 horse power of the Girard type, being the largest of its kind, 'they believe, made in the colony. They alao make borse powers, chaffcutters, brickmaking machinery of superior design, and which have always given general satisfaction. General repairs also occupy and receive a large amount of their attention, their connection in this line being very large and gradually increasing. All the work is aciively supervised by the principals, and any one entrusting them with their work may rely on having it done in the best manner that skill and experience can suggest.

(From the Canterbury Times, January 25tb, 1894 ) The M'Cormick Harvesting Machine Company awarded Seven Medals ■nd Diplomas for the superior excellence of their Binders and Mowers. Chicago, October 24th. At the World's Columbian Exposition to-day, seven medals and seven diplomas were awarded the M'Cormick Harvesting Machine Company of this city. These honours are in recognition of the merit of the following named machines manufactured by the M'Cormick Company. The Machine of Steel, Bindlochine, Open Elevator, M'Oormick Simple Knotter, No 4 Steel Mower, Big 4 Steel Mower and the Corn Harvester. Theee, tbe highest awards, are based on the performance of the M'Cormick machines before the judges in the field trials of the Exposition held at Wayne, Illinois, in July last, the machines tested being those regularly built for the general trade.' It is a significant fact that of all the manufacturers of harvesting machinery having exhibits at the World'a Pair, the M'Oormick Co alone complied with the committee's request to show the capabilities of their machines in the field. The first successful reaper was invented by Cyrus Hall M'Cormick in 1831, and from that time to this the M'Cormiok machines have had a decided prestige over all others. They have won the grand gold medals and highest awards at every world's fair, and it was possible for this reason that six. teen different manufacturers of binders and mowers did not compete

in the field with them. Throughout the entire season these sixteen concerns, in their efforts to have a floor award granted, have done everything possible to baffle the Commission and prevent a fair open field exhibit thatshoald best the working qualities of the machines. And, now, after a four months' fight by the makers of harvesting machines who did not dare meet M'Cormick in the field— a fight in which the United States Commission voted at every turn that the only way to examine a machine was by seeing it at work in the field— and after having signed an agreement with all the others not to show in the field, one concern wanted an award so badly that only two weeks ago it went so far as to get a secret permit to pay the expenses of a new committee to secretly accompany their special machines to a remote section of Colorado, where no machines could be shown, and where the crop (if there is any left) mußt bo much lighter, and the surface of the ground firmer, with the evident hope that these conditions would ensure as easy work and as light draft as were shown by the regular M'Cormick machines in the official tests in July, in the very heavy grain then harvested. The diplomas awarded the M'Cormick machines speak in highest terms of their efficiency, ease of handling and extreme light draft. Tbe M'Cormick No 4 Mower showed wonderful power at work, and a sft cut machine* m a field averaging three tons to the acre, with a dynamometer perfectly adjusted by the U.S. Custodian of Government Weighta and Measures, drew at work, at an averaga draft of 1521 b. The judges pronounce this a remarkable performance. The M'Cormick Biadere, cutting 6ft of heavy oats on uphill ground, and carrying bundle carriers, measured by the same standardised dynamometer, showed a draft as low as 3201 b and none higher than 3601 b. This wonderful showing was a great revelation to many distinguished foreigners at the trial, and no one present was at a loss to know why more machines did not take part in the tests.