AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY
PLOUGHS--DRILLS AND SEEDERS--REAPING MACHINES--THRESHING
MACHINES--PETROL-DRIVEN FIELD MACHINERY--ELECTRICAL FARMING
MACHINERY
Agriculture is at once the oldest and most important of all national
industries. Man being a graminivorous animal--witness his molar, or
grinding, "double" teeth--has, since the earliest times, been obliged
to observe the seasons, planting his crops when the ground is moist,
and reaping them when the weather is warm and dry. Apart from the nomad
races of the deserts and steppes, who find their chief subsistence
in the products of the date-palm and of their flocks and herds, all
nations cultivate a large portion of the country which they inhabit.
Ancient monuments, the oldest inscriptions and writings, bear witness
to the prime importance of the plough and reaping-hook; and it may be
reasonably assumed that the progress of civilisation is proved by the
increased use of cereal foods, and better methods of garnering and
preparing them.
For thousands of years the sickle, which Greek and Roman artists placed
in the hand of their Goddess of the Harvest, and the rude plough,
consisting of, perhaps, only a crooked bough with a pointed end, were
practically the only implements known to the husbandman besides his
spade and mattock. Where labour is abundant and each householder has
time to cultivate the little plot which suffices for the maintenance
of his own family, and while there is little inducement to take part
in other than agricultural industries--tedious and time-wasting
methods have held their own. But in highly civilised communities
carrying on manufactures of all sorts it is difficult for the farmer
to secure an abundance of human help, and yet it is recognised that a
speedy preparation and sowing of the land, and a prompt gathering and
threshing of the harvest, is all in favour of producing a successful
and well-conditioned crop.
In England, eighty years ago, three men lived in the country for every
one who lived in the town. Now the proportion has been reversed; and
that not in the British Isles alone. The world does not mean to starve;
but civilisation demands that as few people as possible should be
devoted to procuring the "staff of life" for both man and beast.
We should reasonably expect, therefore, that the immense advance made
in mechanical science during the last century should have left a deep
mark on agricultural appliances. Such an expectation is more than
justified; for are there not many among us who have seen the sickle and
the flail at work where now the "self-binder" and threshing machine
perform the same duties in a fraction of the time formerly required?
The ploughman, plodding sturdily down the furrow behind his clever
team, is indeed still a common sight; but in the tilling season do we
not hear the snort of the steam-engine, as its steel rope tears a
six-furrow plough through the mellow earth? When the harvest comes we
realise even more clearly how largely machinery has supplanted man;
while in the processes of separating the grain from its straw the human
element plays an even smaller part. It would not be too much to say
that, were we to revert next year to the practices of our grandfathers,
we should starve in the year following.
This chapter will be confined to a consideration of machinery
operated by horse, steam, or other power, which falls under four main
headings,--ploughs, drills, reapers, and threshers.
PLOUGHS
The firm of Messrs. John Fowler and Company, of Leeds, is most
intimately connected with the introduction of the steam plough and
cultivator. Their first type of outfit included one engine only, the
traversing of the plough across the field being effected by means of
cables passing round a pulley on a low, four-wheeled truck, moved
along the opposite edge of the field by ropes dragging on an anchor.
Another method was to have the engine stationary at one corner of the
field, and an anchor at each of the three other corners, the two at
the ends of the furrow being moved for every journey of the plough.
In, or about, the year 1865 this arrangement succumbed to the simple
and, as it now seems to us, obvious improvement of introducing a second
engine to progress vis-à-vis with the first, and do its share of the
pulling. The modern eight-furrow steam plough will turn ten acres a
day quite easily, at a much lower cost than that of horse labour. For
tearing up land after a crop "cultivators" are sometimes used. They
have arrowhead-shaped coulters, which cut very deep and bring large
quantities of fresh earth to the surface.
The ground is now pulverised by harrows of various shapes, according
to the nature of the crop to be sown. English farmers generally employ
the spike harrow; but Yankee agriculturists make great use of the
spring-tooth form, which may best be described as an arrangement of
very strong springs much resembling in outline the springs of house
bells. The shorter arm is attached to the frame, while the longer and
pointed arm tears the earth.
DRILLS AND SEEDERS
In highly civilised countries the man carrying a basket from which
he flings seeds broadcast is a very rare sight indeed. The primitive
method may have been effective--a good sower could cover an acre evenly
with half a pint of turnip seed--but very slow. We now use a long bin
mounted on wheels, which revolves discs inside the bin, furnished with
tiny spoons round the periphery to scoop small quantities of seed
into tubes terminating in a coulter. The farmer is thus certain of
having evenly planted and parallel rows of grain, which in the early
spring, when the sprouting begins, make so pleasant an addition to the
landscape.
The "corn," or maize, crop of the United States is so important that
it demands special sowing machinery, which plants single grains at
intervals of about eighteen inches. A somewhat similar device is used
for planting potatoes.
Passing over the weeding machines, which offer no features of
particular interest, we come to the
REAPING MACHINES,
on which a vast amount of ingenuity has been expended. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century the Royal Agricultural Society of Great
Britain offered a prize for the introduction of a really useful machine
which should replace the scythe and sickle. Several machines were
brought out, but they did not prove practical enough to attract much
attention. Cyrus H. McCormick invented in 1831 the reaper, which, with
very many improvements added, is to-day employed in all parts of the
world. The most noticeable point of this machine was the bar furnished
with a row of triangular blades which passed very rapidly to and fro
through slots in an equal number of sharp steel points, against which
they cut the grain. The to-and-fro action of the cutter-blade was
produced by a connecting-rod working on a crank rotated by the wheels
carrying the machine.
[Illustration: A WHEAT-CUTTER
A "heading reaper" being pushed over a wheat crop by six mules. It cuts
off the ears only, leaving the straw standing. The largest machines of
this type used in California take swathes 50 feet broad.]
The first McCormick reaper did wonders on a Virginian farm; other
inventors were stimulated; and in 1833 there appeared the Hussey
reaper, built on somewhat similar lines. For twelve years or so these
two machines competed against one another all over the United States;
and then McCormick added a raker attachment, which, when sufficient
grain had accumulated on the platform, enabled a second man on the
machine to sweep it off to be tied up into a sheaf. At the Great
Exhibition held in London in 1851, the judges awarded a special medal
to the inventor, reporting that the whole expense of the Exhibition
would have been well recouped if only the reaper were introduced into
England. From France McCormick received the decoration of the Legion
of Honour "for having done more for the cause of agriculture than any
man then living."
It would be reasonable to expect that, after this public recognition,
the mechanical reaper would have been immediately valued at its true
worth. "Yet no man had more difficulty in introducing his machines
than that pioneer inventor of agricultural implements. Farmers
everywhere were slow to accept it, and manufacturers were unwilling
to undertake its manufacture. Even after the value of the machine had
been demonstrated, everyone seemed to fear that it would break down
on rocky and uneven fields; and the inventor had to demonstrate in
person to the farmers the practicability of the reapers, and then even
guarantee them before the money could be obtained. Through all these
trying discouragements the persistent inventor passed before he saw any
reward for the work that he had spent half a lifetime in perfecting.
The ultimate triumph of the inventor may be sufficient reward for his
labours and discouragements, but those who would begrudge him the
wealth that he subsequently made from his invention should consider
some of the difficulties and obstacles he had to overcome in the
beginning."[24]
In 1858 an attachment was fitted to replace the second passenger on the
machine. Four men followed behind to tie up the grain as it was shot
off the machine.
Inventors tried to abolish the need for these extra hands by means of a
self-binding device.
A practical method, employing wire, appeared in 1860; but so great was
the trouble caused by stray pieces of the wire getting into threshing
and other machinery through which the grain subsequently passed that
farmers went back to hand work, until the Appleby patent of 1873
replaced wire by twine. Words alone would convey little idea of how the
corn is collected and encircled with twine; how the knot is tied by an
ingenious shuttle mechanism; and how it is thrown out into a set of
arms which collect sufficient sheaves to form a "stook" before it lets
them fall. So we would advise our readers to take the next chance of
examining a modern self-binder, and to persuade the man in charge to
give as lucid an explanation as he can of the way in which things are
done.
Popular prejudice having once been conquered, the success of the
reapers was assured. The year 1870 saw 60,000 in use; by 1885 the
output had increased to 250,000; and to-day the manufacture of
agricultural labour-saving machines gives employment to over 200,000
people; an equal number being occupied in their transport and sale in
all parts of the globe.
In California, perhaps more than in any other country, "power"
agricultural machinery is seen at its best. Great traction-engines
here take the place of human labour to an extraordinary extent. The
largest, of 50 h.p. and upwards, "with driving-wheels 60 inches in
diameter and flanges of generous width, travel over the uneven surface
of the grain fields, crossing ditches and low places, and ascending
the sides of steep hills, with as much apparent ease as a locomotive
rolls along its steel rails. Such powerful traction-engines, or
'automobiles' as they are commonly called by the American farmers, are
capable of dragging behind them sixteen 10-inch ploughs, four 6-foot
harrows, and a drill and seeder. The land is thus ploughed, drilled,
and seeded all at one time. From fifty to seventy-five acres of virgin
soil can thus be ploughed and planted in a single day. When the harvest
comes the engines are again brought into service, and the fields that
would ordinarily defy the best efforts of an army of workmen are
garnered quickly and easily. The giant harvester is hitched to the
traction-engine in place of the ploughs and harrows, and cuts, binds,
and stacks the golden wheat from seventy-five acres in a single day.
The cutters are 26 feet wide, and they make a clear swathe across the
field. Some of them thresh, clean, and sack the wheat as fast as it is
cut and bound. Other traction-engines follow to gather up the sacked
wheat, and whole train-loads of it thus move across the field to the
granaries or railways of the seaboard or interior."
For "dead ripe" crops the "header" is often used in California. Instead
of being pulled it is _pushed_ by mules, and merely cuts off the heads,
leaving the straw to be trampled down by the animals since it has no
value. Swathes as wide as 50 feet are thus treated, the grain being
threshed out while the machine moves.
One of the most beautiful, and at the same time useful, crops in the
world is that of maize, which feeds not only vast numbers of human
beings, but also countless flocks and herds, the latter eating the
green stalks as well as the ripened grain. The United States alone
produced no less than 2,523,648,312 bushels of this cereal in 1902,
as against 987,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 670,000,000 bushels
of barley. Now, maize has a very tough stalk, often 10 feet high
and an inch thick, which cannot be cut with the ease of wheat or
barley. So a special machine has been devised to handle it. The row
of corn is picked up, if fallen, by chains furnished with projecting
spikes working at an angle to the perpendicular, so as to lift and
simultaneously pull back the stalks, which pass into a horizontal
V-shaped frame. This has a broad opening in front, but narrows towards
its rear end, where stationary sickles fixed on either side give the
stalk a drawing cut before it reaches the single knife moving to right
and left in the angle of the V, which severs the stalk completely. The
McCormick machine gathers the corn in vertical bundles, and ties them
up ready for the "shockers."
THRESHING MACHINES
In principle these are simple enough. The straw and grain is fed into
a slot and pulled down between a toothed rotating drum and a fixed
toothed concave. These tear out the grain from the ear. The former
falls into the hopper of a winnowing and riddling machine, which
clears it from dust and husks, and allows it to pass to a hopper. An
endless chain of buckets carries it to the delivery bins, holding just
one sackful each, which when full discharge the grain through spouts
into the receptacles waiting below their mouths. An automatic counter
records the number of sackfuls of corn that have been discharged,
so that dishonesty on the part of employés becomes practically an
impossibility. While the grain is thus treated, oscillating rakes have
arranged the straw and shaken it out behind in a form convenient for
binding, and the chaff has passed to its proper heap, to be used as
fuel for the engine or as food for cattle.
PETROL-DRIVEN FIELD MACHINERY
On water, rail, and road the petrol engine has entered into rivalry
with steam--very successfully too. And now it bids fair to challenge
both steam-engine and horse as the motive power for agricultural
operations. Probably the best-known English petrol-driven farmer's
help is that made by Mr. Dan Albone, of Biggleswade, who in past times
did much to introduce the safety bicycle to the public. The "Ivel"
motor is not beautiful to look upon; its sides are slab, its outlines
rather suggestive of an inverted punt. But it is a willing and powerful
worker; requires no feeding in the early hours of the morning; no
careful brush down after the day's work; no halts to ease wearied
muscles. In one tank is petrol, in another lubricating oil, in a third
water to keep the cylinders cool. A double-cylinder motor of 18 h.p.
transmits its energy through a large clutch and train of cogs to the
road wheels, made extra wide and well corrugated so that they shall not
sink into soft ground or slip on hard. There is a broad pulley-wheel
peeping out from one side of the machine, which is ready to drive
chaff-cutters or threshers, pump, grind corn, or turn a dynamo at a
moment's notice.
[Illustration: A MOTOR PLOUGH
The "Ivel" Agricultural Motor pulling a three-furrow plough. A motor
thus harnessed will plough six acres a day at a total cost per acre
of five shillings. It is also available for reaping, threshing,
chaff-cutting, and other duties on a farm.]
Hitch the "Ivel" on to a couple of reapers or a three-furrow plough,
and it soon shows its superiority to "man's friend." Here are some
records:--
Eleven acres, one rood, thirteen poles of wet loam land ploughed in
17-1/2 hours, at a cost per acre of 5s.
Nineteen acres of wheat reaped and bound in 10 hours, at a cost of 1s.
9d. per acre.
Fifteen acres, three roods of heavy grass cut in 3-1/2 hours, cost, 1s.
per acre.
With horses the average cost of ploughing is about 10s. an acre; of
reaping 5s. So that the motor does at least twice the work for the same
money.
We may quote a paragraph from the pen of "Home Counties," a well-known
and perspicacious writer on agricultural topics.
"It is because motor-farming is likely to result in a more thorough
cultivation of the land and a more skilful and more enlightened
practice of agriculture, and not in a further extension of those
deplorable land-scratching and acre-grasping methods of which so many
pitiful examples may be seen on our clay soils, that its beginnings
are being sympathetically watched by many people who have the best
interests of the rural districts and the prosperity of agriculture at
heart."[25]
Will our farmers give the same welcome to the agricultural motor that
was formerly accorded to the mechanical reaper? Prophecy is risky,
but if, before a decade has elapsed, the horse has not been largely
replaced by petrol on large farms and light land, the writer of these
lines will be much surprised.
ELECTRICAL FARMING MACHINERY
In France, Germany, Austria, and the United States the electric motor
has been turned to agricultural uses. Where water-power is available
it is peculiarly suitable for stationary work, such as threshing,
chaff-cutting, root-slicing, grinding, etc. The current can be easily
distributed all over a large farm and harnessed to portable motors.
Even ploughing has been done with electricity: the energy being derived
either from a steam-engine placed near by, or from an overhead supply
passing to the plough through trolley arms similar to those used on
electric trams.
The great advances made recently in electrical power transmission,
and in the efficiency of the electric motor, bring the day in sight
when on large properties the fields will be girt about by cables and
poles as permanent fixtures. All the usual agricultural operations of
ploughing, drilling, and reaping will then be independent of horses,
or of steam-engines panting laboriously on the headlands. In fact, the
experiment has been tried with success in the United States. Whichever
way we look, Giant Steam is bowing before a superior power.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] _Cassier's Magazine._
[25] _The World's Work_, vol. iii. 499.