No Need To Use Dollars To Buy Tractors

Chronicle (Levin), 15 March 1949, Page 2

No Need To Use Dollars To Buy Tractors

WELLINGTON, Marek 14. Eigliteen months ago Britaiu was, frankly, not in a position to supply New Zealand with agrieultural tractors in '.any .quantity^, -but today there was 110 need for Now Zealand farnicis to draw upoA'flie shallow Eiupirq pool of dollars-r-exeept for certain "• liinited types which Britain does not make, said Lieut.-Colonel Philip -Johnson, one of Bift^n's .lekijing authorjties ■ upon agricultllral iliiael^ine^y, todalyi - • Colohdl John'Sdh is ' chairihan df tlic tractor.'and agrieultural machinery sec tiou of 'The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, is a life member of the IustituheM£ Agrieultural Engineers,

uiul a membe'r-.pi/the institute of Mechanlcal Engineers:- Oue of his reeent missions was to report 'upon the huge ground-nuts project of the. Overseas food OoKporatiou.at Kongwa, British East'''Africa.' " ' " ''Traii'tor ' manufacture, as- a major in-%ustTW,-nvas e.oihparatively new in thc Ohited Kingdom, lie said, and over bQjn¥ iiia^fceSs,; &wid • not be sought until the last vear or so, for two reasons, the .steel shortage, and the clamant demands of Home' farmers to be supplied first. Now the prospects for a groat. industry were opening fast. ' ' Britaiu can supply, more cheaply in both first cost and maintenance tlian can America, both the wheeled and the crawler tractors that your country "fieeds, with the exception of* the heaviest types, mainly crawlers, above 45 h.p., which Britain does not make," said (Jolouel Jolmson. A most unfortunate aspeet . of the reeent controversy over Ameriean and British tractors, l\e said, was the con■fusion which was introduced by a ineauingless classilicatiou of machines into two-furrow, tliree-furrow tractors, and so on. .. "The classiflc.ation of tractors in the U.S.A. has in the main been based upon the furroivs tliey are supposed to be ivble to cope with under fixed, speeilic

'i conditions, " said Colonel Jolmson. "The offieially recognised tests are in; fact made upon prepared traclcs, nnci tliey do give exact comparisons between two tractors under those identieal conditions. But still, to my mind, that is completely absurd. ' "What the farmer Avants, to know is what hig machine .will do on his farm, in the paddock lie Wants to work on the day lie wants to work it. As a strictly practical man he will, I tliink, agree that there isu't any such tliing as a two-furrow or a three-furrow tractor. It depends on the work to be done. I hgve seen a tractor of tiie heaviest type groaning over a single furfow, but that furrow went down, for specially deep cultivation, two feet six inches. *-'1 have no-doubt at all that the British tractor will make out its own ease by delivering the goods, " said Colonel Jolmson. "I am very pleased to hear that there are prospects of a scries of tractor tests, under practical working conditions, at your Lincolu Agrieultural College, Canterbury. "