Vol. XVII. No. 432. 



THE AGRIUULTDRAL NEWS. 



:^57 



The Sugar Manufacturers' Association is affiliated to the 

 British Empire Producers' Organization which is determined 

 to oppose the resumption of importation from Germany, and 

 •which is therefore actively interested in the increase of 

 production in the Allied and neutral countries. The 

 machinery makers are vitally concerned in this policy, and 

 the whole purpose of their collective action as an association 

 is to enable them to co-operate more efficently with the sugar- 

 growers on tropical estates, with whom they have had cordial 

 relations for so many years, and also to deal effectively with 

 the design and supply of machinery for the manufacture of 

 beet sugar in the United Kingdom and other countries. (The 

 Australian Su:J;<irJmirna/, Augusts, 1918.) 



TRACTORS IN HAWAIIAN CANE FIELDS. 



The Australi'in Su^ar Journal, August 8, 1918, says 

 that the furrowingout of cane fields preparatory to the 

 planting of cane is one of the most difficult kinds of work ia 

 connexion with the raising of Hawaii's most important crop. 

 Formerly mules were employed in this task on nearly all of 

 the plantations, but practical tests have convinced one of the 

 leading Hawaiian sugar companies, the Evva Plantation 

 Company, that this work can be done more efficiently and 

 economically with the Caterpillar tractor. 



When mules were used for furrowingout, eight or even 

 ten mules were required for each plough. Ten mules could 

 pull a single plough cutting a furrow of the required depth 

 in most of the ground; with eight mules to a single plough 

 the strength of the animals was severely taxed, and frequent 

 stops to rest them were necessary. 



AVhen the Holt Caterpillar '4") was tried out in this 

 work it had no difficulty in pulling two of the same big 

 ploughs It had formerly taken the mules forty-five minutes 

 to make one trip across the field where the tractor was tried. 

 The tractor makes the same trip in nine minutes, and could 

 make it in even less time if the men handling the ploughs 

 could stand a faster pace. « , , ,, f 



In four days the Caterpillar '-lo furrowed a held that 

 it had formerly taken two weeks to furrow with mules. 

 From centre to centre of the furrow measures fi6 inches. 



Furrowing is not, however, the only use to which this 

 tractor is being put at Ewa. During the harvesting of the 

 cane crop it is employed to haul trucks loaded with cane over 

 the ridges formed by the ploughing. It is one of the advan- 

 tages of the Caterpillar tractor that it can work over rough 

 ground where tractors of the ordinary type cannot be used. 



The extent to which the tractor is winning its way on 

 the Hawaiian plantations has been much commented on 

 recently by the new,spapers of the Islands. The Pacific 

 Commercial .-J^wr/w/- recently called attention to the fact 

 that whereas five years ago there were only three tractors m 

 all Hawaii, at the present time there are well over 100. It 

 adds • ' The majority (if the plantations that have purchased 

 one or more tractors as experiments have followed quickly 

 with orders for more, and hardly a manager who mentions 

 that his plantation is equipped with^tractors but adds that 

 more have been ordered. ''_' 



'Ploughing, furrowing, cultivatiogi hauling cane cars 

 and waggons, and a dozen other uses, are being found for the 

 tractors on Island plantations.' , ,„ . . f 



It is estimated that there are about 140 tractors ot 

 different types in use at the present time among the planta- 

 tions of Hawaii, of which nearly 7-5 per cent- are Caterpillar 

 tractors. 



THE PROPERTIES OP CORK WOOD. 



In the Agricultural News for June 29, 1918, attention 

 was drawn to the demand in certain quarters for light woods. 

 An interesting note concerning the uses to which it is sug- 

 gested that cork wood {Ochroma /agopus), or as it is known in 

 the American timber market, 'balsa' wood, may be put, 

 appeared in the Proceedingi of the American Society of Civil 

 Engi?teers, Vol. XLII, No. .6, August 1916. In the course of 

 a discussion at a meeting of that Society ,on a paper read 

 by Professor Carpenter, Mr. A. P. Lundin said that his atten 

 tion was drawn to this wood many years ago during voyages 

 to tropical countries. He first remarked it when he saw 

 a number of natives come floating down a river on a raft 

 made of balsa logs. The natives in parts of Central and 

 South America used such rafts to float their produce down the 

 rivers to the seacoast. They seldom use them, however, more 

 than once, because in the first place it would be difficult to 

 bring the raft up against the stream, and because the wood 

 in question absorbs water so very readily that the raft is 

 more or less water-logged after its one journey. 



Mr. Lundin went on to say that later on his attention 

 bad been drawn to some ' crude attempts made to use balsa 

 (cork wood) in lifebelt manufacture; but it was found 

 that the wood absorbed water so rapidly that the belts had 

 to be made two or three times as large as the ordinary cork 

 life-belt to assure the required buoyancy. After several 

 unsuccessful attempts to devise methods for making the wood 

 non-absorbent, it was found that Colonel Marr's water-proof- 

 ing process could be successfully and practically applied for 

 this purpose. 



The United States Government has tried balsa life-belts, 

 life-buoys, etc., as compared with the same articles made of 

 cork, for a period of forty-nine days (twenty-four hours per 

 day), at the end of which period the cork belt had lost all 

 its buoyancy, while the balsa belt still retained the buoyancy 

 stipulated in the Government's requirement. 



( )wing to the fact that the peculiar structure of the balsa 

 wood rendered it suitable for such articles as life-belts, it was 

 considered a few years ago that it might also be adapted for 

 insulation purposes, and acctjrdingly experiments in 

 that direction were begun. The first ice box made with the 

 new material gave surprising results. During hot summer 

 weather ice was put into the box on Friday or Saturday, 

 and on the following Friday or Saturday the temperature in 

 the box would still be c|uite low, and some ice still left 

 nnmelted. 



.\ small ice box or 'pony refrigerator', made by an 

 American company, is stated to be of balsa wood "2 inches 

 thick. The box is about 36 inches long, 31 inches wide, and 

 22 inches deep, and weighs about 30 lb. It is stated that 

 such a box could not be made of any other known insu- 

 lating material. It is strong enough to stand severe jars, 

 •and a man could jump on it without straining it unduly. 



A small container on the lines of a thermos bottle, but 

 in the form of a box made of 1-inch material, and which has 

 the capacity of about 1 cubic foot and weighs 6 lb., has been 

 used to send butter all the way from Virginia to Southern 

 California. The average outside temperature during the 

 trip of eight days was 82° F., yet when the boxes arrived 

 at Los Angeles the butter was still hard and frozen. 

 Mr. Lundin considers th,at there are many uses, especially as 

 a most efficient insulator, to which balsa wood will be 

 increasingly put in the near future 



