American Hay Baier for Grey Valley

Grey River Argus, 18 September 1948, Page 2

American Hay Baier for Grey Valley

A roll baler which promises to revolutionise hay cutting is in operation on the farm of Mr P. D. Cook, Matai, the first privately-owned baler of this type in the Dominion. An American machine it works on a principle entirely different from the principle 01 lhe square as it rolls up in a swathlike rolling up a carpet instead 01 compressing small quantities of hay into an oblong bale. The machine pick up with normal pick-up a window which has been tedded up from three or tour, fivefoot mower cuts. The baler is, ot course, put into the crop when the hay is fully fit, as would be done with a normal baler. The swath is. carried up into the machine where it is rolled in a highly-ingenious, but simple mechanism on exactly the same principles as tobacco is rolled by any of the many “roll-your-own; cigarette gadgets that use cloth binds to put the tobacco into shape for taking tne paper. The 'diameter of the roll of hay, and the denseness of packing, are automatically controlled and may be varied between wide limits. The diameter of the bale can be varied front 14in to 22in. When enough swath has been put into roller to make the required weight and size of bale, the machine automatically breaks tne swath, ties the bale with ordinary binder twine, and throws it out tne back on to the ground. The whole operation is automatic. Only one man, on the tractor, is needed to bale hay. The one man has only to steer the tractor, and when a bale has been picked up, throw the clutch and stop, while the machine, which is worked from the powei take-off, wraps the bale with twine and dumps it. . 4i,„.y,ninc The tieing, or wrapping, of the bale., with twike is interesting. The twme is applied automatically by the machine. which tucks an end in under the iast foot or so of swath at one end ot the bale in a spiral and cuts it, without making the end fast. The most obvious advantage 01 the roll baler is that for crops . such as lucerne or clover hay, it picks up a swath with little or no disturbance and so loses none of the leaf the most valuable part of the hay. It also uses ordinary binder twine, a great advantage in these days of. acute scarcity of wire and baling twine. It is last and economical on labour, and its initial cost is comparatively reasonable. The bales it produces take up less storage space than oblong bales. The rolls shed water much better than conventional bales, because they are virtually thatched. If the bales fall flat on the ground, a much smaller area toucnes the ground than in the case of normal bales. The cylindrical bales are easier to handle than conventional bales. Hav can be fed our m quantities small enough to prevent them being tramped in or fouled. The roll baler when untied unrolls to give back what it took in—a swath 36 inches wide, which it fed out in that form would undoubtedly result in a lot of hay being tramped in by stock or wasted through fouling. The solution isto use a hay knife to cut to the centre of the roil along its axis when flakes of hay can be forked 011 the openedout bale with ease. The machine is remarkably even m its rolling. Bales cut m half, like sawing through a log show the compression to be exactly the same f r °m the centre to be outside. There aie no soft spots, though the swath picked up is just an ordinary swath with some thick places and some thin. "Cheeses” of hay cut from the ends could be unrolled the whole length ot the swath without breaking up easily. Methods of feeding out roll- bales are to be studied by Lincoln College, but even if no advance can be made on the hay knife method, the baler would seeine to have an important place among machinery for the hay harvest, most particularly foi haivesting lucerne and clover nay.