AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 544, 26 January 1882, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.

; To the Editor. , Sir, — I have much pleasure in handing 1. you for publication a cutting from an English paper, to show your readers that 1 Ashburton is not altogether unknown in s the/ great’ English market, and that we have tho£ie amongst us who are able to 1 advise the English manufacturers as to , the prices to adopt to compete with their great American rivals. But I would like 1 to ask S. E. Poyntz and Co. (whoever they may be), if the English prices are so 1 much above the American, how is it that the American has put such a heavy protective chjty on English goods going into their porijs 1 I think S. E. Poyntz and Co. would be! doing more good if he would send a letter to the Ashburton paper, and let us know what are the wholesale prices of both English and American goods, and then we would be able to judge which was cheapest, and also be able to compare it with the retail prices of both in ' Ashburton. If lam rightly informed, ' one of our own colonial manufacturing firms was the means of bringing down the price of some of both English and American goods this season something like 175 per cent. Now, into whose pocket was this going—the makers or the Christchurch importers ? Now, if such is the case, I think S. B. Poyntz and Co. would have done more good if they had addressed their letter much nearer home.— I am, &c., A Novice. Sir, —The subject of the best constructed and most durdale agricultural machinery obtainable at the lustiest possible cost, being a question that is now engaging the attention of the farming community, we ask a small space in your valuable journ: .1 for a few remarks. American implements at the present time in New Zealand, hold the p ide of place, not however because they are in reality better made implements, but because th ly contain two essential qualities in a new com itry, viz, : cheapness in their first cost and li ■ htness of construction. There can be no dou 5t that in most cases farmers would prefer the English machine in preference to the Amerii an, if the cost of same were less excessive. Though the durability of English machinery is undoubted, yet it is obtained at such an enoimous cost over the American article thr t it becomes almost prohibitory. That the J ew Zealand farmers are desirous of using English made implements is evident by the follow! ig extract taken from remarks made by one of its members at a meeting of the Kaiapoi F irmers Club, held in September, 1881. Groat weight should be attached to the remarks th:re made, as the club represents one of the argest agricultural districts in New Zealand. The speaker referred to, said : ‘ ‘ Reapers •; have been vastly improved since the Burgess and Key were first brought out, and while indebted to the Americans for the harvester, it was hoped that the firms of Howard, Hornsby, and Samuelson would be soon inja position to offer much better machinery at a lower price. He hoped they would enccjuragc the English makers to drive out of the I‘narket machines which were not only excess ive in point of cost, but were costly in respect c f the extras which they always required.” Trusting that the English manufacturers w 11 endeavor to lower the prices of machinery >o as to successfully compete with American inanufaclurers. —We are, etc., S. E. Poyntz & Co. Ashburton, New Zealand.