HARVESTING MACHINERY.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1501, 16 February 1882, Page 3

HARVESTING MACHINERY.

Farmers who revisit the Old Country after an absence of from twenty to thirty years must see a wonderful change in the manner of reaping and in gathering the crops. Where all the reaping Mas done with hand reap-hooks or sickles he would now nee the corn neatly and expeditiously cut and bound in one operation faster than ten or a dozen men could perform the work by hand. Of course the reaphook was first supplanted by the reaping machine, but not without being strenuously resisted by the labouring classes, who, in their ignorance, fancied that they would be quite deprived of the means of earning a little higher wages at harvest time if the use of reaping machines became general. The opposition to reaping machines being overcome in the course of time, there was no difficulty in introducing the still more labour-saving binding machines. Apropos of these we give an extract from a Canterbury journal printed some seven years since : — • Our reaping and threshing machines are almost perfect, but the next great desideratum—an efficient binding machine — has yet to be supplied. When we consider what a number of delicate operations machinery has been made to perform, it seems rather extraordinary that no machine has been constructed to perform the comparatively rough work of binding. There is a certain fortune awaiting the man who invents such a machine, and apart from the wealth he would gain from the sale of his mo chines, lie would undoubtedly be considered by farmers the greatest benefactor of mankind.' The farmers' highest hopes have been realised, and yet they have a great deal to complain of this season. But it is well-known that farmeis are the greatest grumblers in existence, and their occupation is such that it requires a great many favourable circumstances to combine together to make a farmer easy and contended in his mind. For the colonies, where such large areas are cultivated, it is imperatively necessary that all the available strength should be applied in the most judicious manner. Machinery should be employed wherever it is possible to do so. It was a saying of Mechi's, the well-known agriculturist, — ' Never employ a man where a machine can be used.' If this is true in England, witli a teeming population, how much more forcibly must it apply to the circumstances of a colony ? The ignorant prejudice against machinery which obstructed the introduction of reaping and threshing machines seems to have died out. Experience has shown that machinery does not dispense with human labour, but calls for it in a different shape and to an increased extent. It is now recognised that the more that machinery is used the less will the work done by men be like that of the beast of burden. We are now inclined to pride ourselves upon the advanced btate to which machinery has been brought in comparison to the rude contrivances of our forefathers. But perhaps after the lapse of another hundred years the machinery of the present clay will be considered very clumsy and useless, though there may be men found to stick to it, in spite of the improvements that may be invented, just because their fathers did so. Even at the present time there are to be found in the south of England men who are using implements and machines which a Colonial farmer would consider only fit to stop a gap in the fence. The writer of this received by the last mail a letter from a friend who is on a visit to England in which he says : — ' Only a few miles from London I saw a man holding a wooden plough of the most antiquated sort, which was drawn by three great horses in a line, and driven by a big lump of a boy •who would be considered old enough to take charge of a double plough and four horfees in the Colonies. I also saw three men and a boy working an ordinary corn drill, and a farm waggon never goes off the farm without having two men with it, one to take charge of the load and the other the horses. A ploughman liore in the south of England gets about los a week without board, but he mu&t have a boy to help him with a single plough, and is not expected to plough more than three-fourths of an acre a day, so that labour is much cheaper in Otago, where a man will plough tlnee acres a day for 25s a week and found." The stage to which mechanical invention has arrived in any country should be a fair test of its general advancement, and of the comfort and prosperity of its inhabitants. It is impossible for any company to hold its own in the great march of nations if it •will persist in adhering to the old-fashioned means of performing work. There are few occupations in which there is more heavy manual labour lequiredthan in agriculture. The cultivation of grain entails incessant labour all the year round, and therefore affords great scope for the mechanical aid. Without the reaping machine and steam-threshing machines, agriculture could not be carried on in this province, except on a very limited scale. It is the interest of all those engaged in agricultural pursuits to obtain all the information possible — information as to the implements and machinery in use in all the most advanced countries. At present we buy whatever the merchants impoit, and as there is little direct trade with any country but Great Britain, the greater part of the implements and machinery are of English manufacture. There is probably no country where machinery is so much employed as in Great Britain, but the question is — whether that machinery i& the most suitable for our requirements. We are indebted to the Yankees for the binding apparatus, and probably we could benefit by a few more ' Yankee notions.' being introduced. The large exhibitions which have recently been held in different Australian colonies will no doubt do immense good in bringing all the best machinery of the civilised world together under one roof, where it may be viewed at leisure by anyone who would take the tumble to go and see it. It is quite possible, however, for a farmer to get too much machinery and implements around him if he buys the latest improvement in everything. Unless he can make profitable use of it, it will be so much dead stock on his hands, and the money could have been much more judiciously laid out in manure or otherwise. It is very seldom that practical farmers are guilty of this mania for machinery ; fancy farmers and retired tradesmen sometimes endeavonr to make up for their want of practical knowledge by surrounding themselves by expensive and unnecessary machinery. Witness.

Why is an incompetent solicitor like necessity ? — Because he knows no law. If his love lies dreaming, what show is there for getting any truth out of her when she is awake ? It kind of broke lip the temperance man from down East when he went into the rooms of the Deadwood Total Abstinence Club to find the club believed in total abstinence from water. A Rookland man saw advertised " a sure cure for drunkene^s.' 5 He forwarded the necessary dollar and received by return mail, written on a postal card in beautiful violet ink, the words, "Don't , . " Do I look anything like you, Mr Jones ?" enquired Thompson. "• I hope not," was the reply." " Did a man take you for me ?" " Yes" "Where is he ? I must lick him." "Oh, he's dead j I ehQtlumwtiiwepot." *' !