The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-10 00:00:00

HAYMAKING BY ARTIFICIAL HEAT.
(From Wednesday's Time )
In a catching season it is common to make reflections
upon the large money loss annually suffered in harvest-
ing the hay crop. On something like six million acres
of meadow hay and about three million acres of hay
from clover and other artificial grasses, there may be
in the United Kingdom a total produce of twelve
million tons • which, taking the average value at, say
£4, it would be worth £48,000,000. It is within the
mark to say that only a minor proportion of all this
acreage of grass and clover gets converted into hay
without damage from weather, in an average of fine
and wet seasons; and over a large area, it may be one-
fourth of the whole, the hay actually carried to the rick
is probably worth several pounds per acre less than if
it were secured without loss from rain. No doubt,
in a fine hot season, with the luck to escape storms,
haymaking by exposure in the field is far cheaper
than any other process which can be devised, but the
deterioratiogiaw.:o rapid and so serious under repeated
showers tharMi question arises whether we might not
profitably exchange the natural but hazardous method
for a safe though more costly hay-curing by artificial
heat. In the lately prevailing state of the barometer
and hygrometer any number of farmers in the grants
districts must have felt, while shaking out, turning,
and re-making their sodden and washed hay, what a
vast advantage it would be to have at command an
apparatus by which they might make absolutely safe
their 10 or 20 tons per day, catching it between one
downfall and another. Nay, at a time when the best
hay is worth very nearly the same price as bread, it is
an easy matter to lose £2 or £3 per ton in quality; and
the grower of 50 or 100 tons of hay could afford a con-
siderable outlay to prevent a sacrifice like this.
No apparatus for the purpose appears in competi-
tion at the Royal Agricultural Society's trials of hay-
making machinery now being conducted at Taunton,
but on Saturday we witnessed the operation of hay-
drying by artificial heat at Gillwell-park, near
Chingford, Essex, the residence of the inventor, Mr.
William Alfred Gibbs. After some years of practical
experimenting Mr. Gibbs has brought his invention
into the following form :—A portable stove constructed
of plate iron is surmounted by a fan, which is driven
by a belt from a three-horse power portable steam-
engine; the fan draws all the heated air and gases
from the coke fire, together with a volume of warmed
air, which passes through a chamber surrounding
the inner chamber of the stove, and blows the hot
current, at a temperature of 400 deg. Fahrenheit
or more, into the drier. This resembles in general
shape a straw elevator, consisting of a sheet-iron
trough 6ft. in breadth, 20it. long if mounted on wheels
as a portable carriage, or 40ft. or 50ft, long if a fixture.
The trough is raised at one end at a low angle, so that
hay fed in at the upper end furthest from the stove
shall slowly travel to the lower end near the stove—
this being assisted by a slow reciprocating motion
given to the bottom of the trough. A ridge of tri-
angular section running along the middle of the trough
divides it into two almost semicircular channels, so
that the hay passes down in two streams; the hot air
issues through two slit apertures, one on each side the
base of the middle ridge, and for the entire length of
the machine; and the hay is kept continually stirred
and lightened up over the hot blast by a number of
small iron stirrers cleverly contrived to imitate the
action of forks worked by hand.
We saw partly-made but wet hay passed through
the machine and converted at once into a thoroughly
dry condition for the stack; we saw spoilt and must'
hay dried into hay of fair apparent quality and
pleasant fragrance; and we saw freshly-cut grass,
saturated with rain from a very heavy thunder-shower
which poured down at the time, dried into hay of first-
class colour, and possessing the rich malt odour pecu-
liar to well-made hay. With a single 201 t. machine
the operation is too slow to employ fully one man
feeding off a cart and another man removing the dried
product; but with two such machines side by side, or
with one fixed machine of 40ft. or 50ft, length, pro-
bably one set of carters and stackers could be kept going.
From the experiments made under our supervision it ap-
pears that, while fresh and wet grass loses 70 to 75 per
cent, of its original weight in being made into hay, the
quantity of moisture in excess in partially-made hay, or
hay caughtrby a heavy rain, maybe from 10 to 20 percent.
To expel this water from partially-made hay requires a
consumption of coke in the stove and of coal for the
engine not exceeding a cost of is. 3d. per ton of hay
dried. Preserving fresh-cut grass may cost in fuel six
or seven times more. With outlay for labour, and for
wear and tear of apparatus, the total expense, accord-
ing to Mr. Gibb's calculations, does not exceed 7s. or
Bs. per ten, which is, indeed, a very moderate disburse-
ment for saving a loss of perhaps pounds per ton. To
make fresh-cat grass into the finest hay at one stroke
costs about £2 per ton of the dried hay.
Now, it is possible that in a wet season it may pay
thus to preserve grass entirely by artificial heat ; but
Mr. Gibbs recommends the general use of the appa-
ratus for completing the process of haymaking after
the grass has been withered by some exposure, and has
lost, say, more than half of its original moisture. At this
stage it will cost little to clear the field and get the hay
safely into stack in the best possible condition, instead
of leaving it to the chance of being rained on, invol-
ving a great additional expense in the ordinary labour
of making, with liability to very great loss in nose"
and colour. Another feature is that a small proportion
of the artificially dried hay, if mixed with, damaged
stuff, improves the whole bulk in a manner which
could hardly be believed without trial; and another
is that a farmer having a drying-machine at com-
mand is not afraid to open out his hay in
dubious weather, and thus no fine hours whatever are
wasted in waiting. One neighbour of Mr. Gibbs, a
very large bay farmer, testifies that he has had large
quantities of hay so spoilt by frequent rains as to be
reduced from £6 to £2 in value per load. He dried
some of this with the machine, and considered it to be
, so restored in quality as to be worth £6—that is, it re-
gained the value it had lost, though, of course, there
was still some loss in quantity. To save £4 per load
on 40 loads would repay the prime cost of the appa-
ratus in a single summer.
Whether large hay-growers may adopt the machine
for their own use, or two or more small growers may
join at a machine, or whether it would be profitable
for men who let out steam thrashing machines to make
this hay-drying a part of their business (seeing that it
is wanted only in the season, when few cornstacks
remain to be thrashed), it will be well that agricul-
turists should devote some careful attention to this
method of dealing with a valuable and precarious crop.