The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1875-07-30
NUMBER I6.
Hay.Making by Artificial Heat.

The London Times OF the 7th inst, in
an account Of hay-making by artificial
heat, says: "No apparatus for the pur.
pose appears in competition at the Royal
Agriculiral Society'a trials Of hay-mak-
ing machinery now being conducted at
Taunton, but on Saturday we witnessed
the operation of hay drying by artificial
heat at Gilwell Park, near Chingford,
Eessex, the residence of the inventor,
Mr.. William Afford Gibbs. After some
years Of practical experimenting, Mr..
Gibbs has brought his invention into the
following form: A portable stove, con-
Ftrncted Of plate iron, is surniounted by
fan, which is driven by a belt from
three-horse-power portable steam en-
gine; 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 surrouding
the inner chamber ofthe stove and blows
the hot current, at a temperature Of four
hundred degrees Fahrenheit or more in
to the dIier. This resembles in general
shape straw elevator, consisting Of
a sheet-iron trough six feet in breadth,
twenty feet long il mounted on wheels as
a portable carriage, or forty TO ffty feet
long if fixture. The trough is raised
at one end al a low angle, SO that hay
Ted in at the upper end furthest from the
the stove shall slowly travel to the low.
er end towards The stove-this being as
sisted by a slow reciprocating motion
given to the bottom Of the trough. A
ridge of triangular section running along
the middle of the trough divides il into
two almost semicircnlar channels, 20
that the hay passes down in two streams;
the hot air issues through two slit aper-
lures, one on each side of the middle
ridge, and for the entire length of the
machine; and the hay ia continuely stir
red and lightened mp over theshof blast
by number of small iron stirrers cIev.
erly contrived to initiate the action Of
forks worked by hand.
"We saw partly made but wet hay
passed through the machine and conver-
ted at once into a thorough dry condi-
tin for the stack; we saw spoilt hay dri.
ed into hay of fair apparent quality and
pleasant fragance; and we saw freshly
cut grass, saturated with rain from a
heavy shower which poured down atthe
time, dried into hay Of first class color
and possessing the rich malt odor pecu-
liar to well-made hay. Whit a single
twenty-feet machine the operation is too
slow to employ fully one man feeding
off cart and another man removing
the product; but with two such ma
chimes side by side. or with one fixed ma
chine of forty-feet or ffty-feet length.
probably one set ofcarters and stackers
could keep going. From the expert
ments made under our supervision it ap-
pears that while fresh and wet grass
loses seventy to seventy i've per cent, of
its original weight in being made into
hay, the quantity of moisture in excess
in partially made hay, or hay caught by
a heavy rain, may be from ten To twenty
per cent. To expel this water from
partially-made hay requires a consump-
tion Of soke in the stove and of coal for
the engine not exceeding a cost Of one
shilling and three pence per ton of hay
dried. Preserving fresh cut grass may
cost in fuel six or seven times more.
With outlay for labor and for wear and
tear Of apparatus, the total expense, ac-
cording to Mr.. Gibbs calculation, does
not exceed seven shillings per ton. To
make fresh-cut grass into the finest hay
at one stroke costs about E2 per ton of
the dried havO