Machine Simplifies Clearance Of Bush Scrub Country

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 17, 31 March 1950, Page 4

Machine Simplifies Clearance Of Bush Scrub Country

A new machine, which may be useful on New Zealand farms, that clears away brush and trees and practically disintegrates them is being manufactured in the United States. Called the “Bushwhacker,” machine can be used to clear land for building sites, fire breaks, airports, dam sites, and highway rights-of-way.

The Bushwhacker resembles an ordinary track-laying tractor over which has been placed a rectangular steel frame 20 feet long and 10 •feet wide. At the front of the frame is a revolving steel drum covered at the top and back with heavy steel plating. Twenty flails of chrome-maganes£. steel.are attached by . chains to dhe drum. A 39horsepower diesel engine powers the tractor, and an auxiliary diesel of 168-horsepower drives the revolving flails.

When the machine is in operation, th i frame is lowered so that gauge wheels on each end of the revolving drum are on the ground. As the Bushwhacker moves through a patch of undergrowth at a speed of about 1.5 mijes an hour, a heavy steel cross bar at the front of the machine bends down the trees and brush. The flails, moving at a speed of 9,900 feet a minute around the drum, strike them with such force that their fibres are disintegrated, i The striking motion also carries the unbroken material up against the steel plates around the top and back of the drum, where they are flailed and shredded before falling to the ground. This shredded material provides the soil with good mulch.