FACTS FOR FARMERS. REAPING AND BINDING MACHINES.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 117, 4 February 1873, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS. REAPING AND BINDING MACHINES.

The labour difficulty is yearly becoming of more seriou difficulty to tho farmers The state of policy of converting every agricultural labourer into a landholder has deranged our social system, and has necessitated lesort to mechanical substitutes for the hands no longer available. For several years past thfre has been a demand for a machine that shall both reap and bind, and so leave the crop in sheaves ready for the wagon. In America, •where unquestionably a groat deal of originality has been shown bv inventors, the demand lias long been made, but to far ineffectually. The nearest appronc'i towards success has been in the same class known as dumping machines, by which the sheaves are all cut to one length, taking when the crop is high, not more than one-half oftliestraw. MnrsVsreaperand binder is notstrictlvaraechanical one, the binding being performed by two men who are carried on the platform, and at whose mercy, therefoi c, the farmer and liis crops would be. But e\ en with that it is only pioposed to cut eight acres per day, and in this colony two men who could pjrform that feat of binding have not vet been met with. At the recent National Show a modified edition of Marsh's machine was exhibitel, but as it still left the farmer at the mercy of an expert who might be incapacitated by accident at any time, it cannot be regarded as fulfilling the conditions, viz , bein^ a mechanical reaper and binder. For many years past an offer of a prize of £100 has figured in several of the society's schedules, and other societies have made known their desiie to reward according to their means the inventor of a practically useful machine of this kind ; but though seveial inventors have exhibited the result of their bram-wor'hings, none seem to havo solved the problem, fho Beaufort Society now proposes to ask the Government to offor a prizj of £1000 for a reaper and binder, and to invite the Agricultural Societies to supplement it with an equal amount. The invention of such an aid to fanners would be cheap at many times £2000. But inventors hardly need to be told that— they are very well aware that the whole world is ready to buy their machine, and that a prodigious fortune awaits him who shall first show how to construct one The offer of £2000, therefere, is hardly more likely to produce the much-coveted invention than this knowledge which every inventor possesses of the intrinsic worth of a piece of mechanism that will answer the intended purpose The Americans, it may be mentioned, have had to abandon the straw and take only the heads, which arc immediately carted to a thrashing-machine at a convenient distance; but whether this is bettor than our stripper is uncertain.