THE ARTIFICIAL DRYING OF HAY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2681, 9 November 1882, Page 3

THE ARTIFICIAL DRYING OF HAY.

Probably the most interesting, because the newest, feature of the recent exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society of England at Reading, was the display, accompanied by public trial, of hay-drying machines. The Neilson system of haydrying, by fans driven in some cases by steam, in others by the hand, and described in our columns oftener than once this summer, has naturally attracted the attention of farmers, especially in England during the last few months. After so many wet seasons as have been experienced since 1872, anything calculated to aid the farmer in his struggle with rainy hay and com harvest, could not have failed to secure notice from agriculturists. The hay trials at Reading, unfortunately, were marred by persistent rains. For days in succession the operations were at a stand still. The rainfall was too great and too steady. The manufacturers make no pretensions to dry hay stacked in a soaked or thoroughly drenched state. They only claim for their machines that they will bring hay stacked in a green or fresh condition into good keeping trim. To a considerable extent they have in this respect been successful both at Reading and in some other parts of England. The Royal Agricultural Society of England never do anything by halves. If they take a subject in hand they do not usually part with it until they have its benefits or defects, as the case may be, elucidated to the public. They do not stick at cost, if a public purpose has to be served, as in this instance. Accordingly the society, whose hay trial judges were not quite satisfied with tests among hay alone, have at great expenditure of time and money continued the operations in a large field of barley, specially secured for the purpose. For the . barley trials, however, only machines driven by steam power were selected. Three of these — the Messrs Lister’s, Mr Coultas’, and Mr Phillip’s—have been subjected to exhaustive trials in barley stacks—two for each machine, built on the day of reaping, or at latest the day following. The crop was not very uniform. Lots were ballotted for. The Messrs. Lister got the lot with most grass or green sappy material in the lower end of the sheaves. Mr Coultas obtained the lot with the “ cleanest ” and easiest dried straw ; while Mr Phillip’s was in this respect of a sort of medium description. The consequence is that the Messrs Lister have had to use their machines much more extensively than Mr Coultas, and rather more freely also than Mr Phillip. Mr Coultas has had no difficulty in keeping the temperature of his stacks below a maximum of SO degrees, but the other two have. The cooling or curing of the one lot of stacks is thus likely to be more satisfactory, as it certainly is more simple, than that of the other two. The judges, however, fully cognizant as they are of the easier task of the one machine, may be expected to make due allowance for the difference in the circumstances. The real benefit of the trials to the public consists in the opportunities they afford, not only for an inspection of thQ various machines at work, but for the remedying of defects in the implements which only exhaustive practical tests cau reveal. It is somewhat disappointing to the smaller farmers, as well as to the manufacturers of the fans driven by the hand, that the only three set aside for the subsequent test with the barley crop are driven by steam power. This selection on the part of the Royal English Society”s judges, after more than a week’s work among hay, may be considered to have aimed rather a blow at the fans driven by manual labor. One thing is clear, that if steam must bo available to bring out the benefits of the system, the fans are likely for many a day to be chiefly confined to the larger holdings. Hand power, however, is not altogether ineffectual. It has already done fair work in some instances. The difficulty is to keep up the revolutions by hand driving for the requisite length of time. This, of course, can be more easily secured by employing steam power. A small engine for this purpose, it has been pointed out, would bo of great service for other work about a steading, such as straw cutting, cake breaking, grain bruising, &c. By a test applied to those three fans working on the barley stacks to ascertain the number of revolutions made per minute, that of Mr Coultas was found to give IGCO revolutions to 140 strokes of the engine ; that of Mr Phillips 2450 to 154 strokes; and that of Messrs Lister 075 to 102. In the tests applied in the showyard at Reading, Mr Coultas’ fan registered 1008 revolutions to 100 of the engine, the water column, sup-

ported, being 5 - 50, while the velocity of air by air-meter was 286 G. Mr Phillips’ gave IGOO revolutions to 80 of the engine, the water column being 2'90, and the air velocity 2796 ; Messrs Lister’s, 1000 revolutions to 100 of the engine wheel, with the water column 1*45, and the velocity of air by air-meter 2994. Though the advocates of hand driving are discouraged somewhat by the shunting of those machines in the Reading trials, it need not be concluded by farmers generally that hand power is of no avail. The means by which the motive power is applied is certainly an important point j but of greater importance still is the efficacy or otherwise of the system of drying hay or grain by means of exhaust fans. If the Reading trials, protracted and painstaking as they have been, do not fully settle the latter and major point, they should go a long way in that direction, and together with the testa that are being undertaken by individual agriculturists, should bring the interesting question within a few years of complte solution. Scottish agriculturists have not as yet displayed more than a little curiosity in this matter. Very few of them have invested in exhaust fans, and no public trials have even been talked of north of the Tweed. It does not appear to ns that the system of hay drying under discussion will be of so much service to Scotch as to English and Irish agriculturists. In the first-named country there is not so much hay made as in the other two. There is very little meadow hay in Scotland as compared with the other portions of the kingdom. The hay harvest north of the Border is of shorter duration than in the south, and with rather sharper, keener air, less difficulty is experienced in hay making than in the sunny south. Nevertheless, in some wet seasons, such as several of lata years, artificial assistance would have been very welcome in Scotland as elsewhere. The great bulk of the hay in Scotland is composed of clover and ordinary ryegrass. Partners could not with impunity allow stacks of clover and sown grass hay to heat to the extent that the English growers of meadow hay do. It seems to he part of the natural grass haymaking system in the south of England to let the stacks heat almost unto the ignition pitch. The exhaust fans are calculated to he of great value there for the regulation of the degree of heat. In Scotland heating in the stack, either with clover, hay, or grain and straw, is avoided as much as possible. Here also the fans may be of considerable utility in preventing heating where either hay or corn, and straw had been stacked before it was thoroughly dried. Prom what we have seen of the exhaust fans, we have no hesitation in saying that the system seems worthy of every encouragement and tli • fullest trial, not merely in the public, ill la, but also on the private farm. It may be of more service in drying grain in a. late harvest than hay in Scotland. Mr Rutherford, Pirntonan, Berwickshire, purchased a hand fan at Reading with a view to drying beans in the stack, if need he, this autumn. If any other Scotch farmers have made a similar investment, we hope that they, as well as Mr Rutherford, will favor their brother farmers with a description of their experience of this new machine.