CLEANING DRAINS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 145, 10 April 1940, Page 6

CLEANING DRAINS

AN INTERESTING MACHINE In these days of mechanised farms the sound of a motor does not attract attention but users of a Hauraki Plains road on Wednesday heard the sound of a motor launch amid green pastures miles back from the river and investigation disclosed a peculiar-looking craft amid the raupo and tall weeds of a narrow roadside drain. Behind it was a clear water-way but alpngside and ahead was a dense growth of weeds such as would effectively stop any ordinary craft and quickly foul any propellor. But this was not an ordinary craft for it was driven by two paddle wlieels at the stern and it had a special knife to cut a passage through the weeds. Indeed that was the purpose of the craft for it was the Lands Drainage Department's drain cleaner at its seasonal operations. Like a Hay Mower. The two knives, shaped like hay mower blades, cut the stems of the weeds close above the roots and push the debris to the sides of the drain from where it can be removed with comparative ease. The machine will work in from a few inches to seveTal feet of water and will cut a track up to six feet wide and a mile long in a working day. In open water it can travel at six knots. The fact that six men cannot lift the cut weeds to the drain bank fast enough to enable them to keep up to the machine indicates the saving in time and cost over the oM method of men in thigh gum boots using shovels and drags in deep water. Landowners, however, complain that the machine-cleaned drains become less efficient each year for the cut stems retard the flow of I water and the silt is not removed as was done to a certain extent when the weeds were dragged out by the roots and the drains shovelled to the original- depth as the specifications invariably required.