ELECTRICITY AS APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2419, 6 January 1882, Page 4

ELECTRICITY AS APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE.

At the Paris Electric Exhibition, in the north-west angle of the French Division, under the gallery, there has been for some time a large space, scantily occupied by some agricultural machines, a good-sized locomotive on a lino of rails, two ploughing machines, two saws, and a stone cutter, all supplied with Gramme dynamo-machines for their various services, but nevertheless devoid of animation. The change into activity which from time to time h;.s marked other sites is extending its influence over this, and the pump and the rockdrill are now at work. For many years, M. Felix, of the Sugar Works of Ssmaizs, has turned his attention to the application of electricity to agricultural purposes, and to his own industry ; and he has undertaken many experiments which have been brought bo good results. In 1878 ho constructed an apparatus for unloading his beetroots from the bargee of his wsggons, and more than four million kilogrammes wore discharged with admirable facility. Encouraged by his first success, he ventured further, and built a thresher, a straw cutter, and other machines, all successfully put into action by electricity. Tho series was crowned by a great public display in 1870, when the application of electricity was made to plough by a current conveyed by wire from the stationary engine at the sugar factory to a field at 500 metres distance; and of this event an account was given at the time to the Academy of Sciences, by M. Treses, the Sous-direoteur of the Con■ervatorie des Arts et Metiers. The principle iacalculated by M. Felix is that it is more economical to transmit the power of electricity from stationary steam engines than to transport the portable steam engines to the fields. The portable engine is regarded as extravagant when used by untrained hands, and •when it consumes six or eight pounds of ooal per horae-dowor; whereas the stationary engine, always more economical, does that amount of work upon a consumption of one or two pounds J per horse-power. It is admitted that in the transmission of the electric current from the local generating machine to the distant movable or working machine 50 per cent, of tho power is lost ; but sgdnst this it is argued that, as the stationary steam engine works upon one pound, the coal expense of the second electrical motor is only two pounds as against more than double that quantity for the portable steam engine. The argument is carried further, and if water power can fce employed the coal expenditure may be done away with altogether—a consummation which in France, with its scanty supply of fuel, it may be worth many efforts to attain.

As visitors descend by the great stairs from the galleries into the cave, the roar of a torrent of water, some IBin broad and 6ia deep, flowing from a copper standard about 12ft high into an iron reservoir, attracts notice, end they gather round the little centrifugal pump and its dynamo-machine in astonishment at the compactness of the power. All belts aro done away with; the axial shaft of the Gramme machine acts by a small friction pulley direct upon a larger friction pulley attached to the axial shaft of a centrifugal pump. The way in which the friction gear is put into or taken out of action is equally simple and excellent. The dynamo machine is pivoted beneath its base, and by means of a lever is tilted forwards or backwards to the extent of half an inoh. If forward, its axial shaft advances, and the friction pulley upon it engages with the friction pulley of the pump, and it works ; if backwards, the small driving pulley of the dynamo machine is retired from the friction pulley of the pump, and its action ceases. Without doubt this simple and effective means of connecting and disconnecting the electrical motor with the machine to be driven gets rid of some difficulties of a harassing nature. Electricity, viewed in its physical aspect, is a mode of motion, and as such is convertible into other modes of motion. If we employ the current for mechanical motion, the second or working electrical machine should be started by the current from the generator, and pat it into engagement with the machine to be driven as gently as possible, because if the inertia be sufficient to arrest the current, heat will be set up in the bobbin and in the conducting wire between the two electrical machines, and mischief may arise by the melting of the insulating materials. By the lever arrangement the engagement is admirably effected, the addition of a spring preventing any dangerous suddenness or violent pressure, as no amount of force applied to the lever can influence the regulated strength of the spring. The system of electrical pumping is in practical use at the Waterworks of Booholle, applied at a distance of a kilometre from the great supply engine to raise water from the reservoir, a height of two metres, for its service when the droughts have reduced the level. The two ploughing machines are strongly end compactly made made, and each carries its own working dynamo machine. It can consequently march as well as haul. The plough is drawn across the field by a rope, worked between the two machines by their lateral drums, as in the ordinary manner of steam ploughing. Tho weight of the ploughing machine and its accessories is about five tons. The railway locomotive is about the same weight, and is 10£t in length. It runs on a line of one metre guage, and is calculated to draw a load of about 100 tons. The mode of putting on the electrical power is a very ingenious modification of the friction gear above described. Its Gramme machine drives two small friction pulleys geared together. One pulley, of course, rotates in one direction, the other pulley in the opposite direction. Consequently, when the two geared pulleys are tipped by the lover to engage with the driving pulley of the locomotive, it will be moved ahead or reversed, according to which of the Gramme pulleys is in contact with it, Finally, we have to notice another very important appli. cation to the stone catting or drilling. The soft limestone, of which Faris is mainly built, is oat from the bods, and wedged out in blocks in the like manner aa the oolitic ston at Caen, in Normandy, and at Bath, in ou own country. There is a large block of the Faris limestone to be operated upon by the stone cutter, which is essentially the invention of M. Ohenot, although included in M. Felix’s exhibit, and actuated by a Gramme machine, with friction pulleys upon his system. We speak separately of this machine, because it attaches itself to an entirely different history and clasc of operation. In agricultural work there is only needed rotary motion applicable for hauling, lifting, pumping, and to locomotion and transportation. In mining and quarrying the like operations are carried on, but there is one mechanical motion almost peculiar to these industries—that of percussion. Although diamond rotary drills exist, the work done by them in the exploration of geographical strata by large and deep boring, and the general work of mining, tunnelling and quarrying, as accomplished Jby blasting, is entirely done by percussion drills. The destruction of tho drills and the damage done to their working parts by their own blows and shocks is very serious, and none of the systems in which mechanical devices are employed to relieve the violences of the impacts has been satisfactory. From what may be observed of tho practical value of electricity as applied to agriculture, there can be no doubt but that a great revolution is pending in the future.