1922.] Agricultural Machinery Testing Stations. 



921 



(3) There is no purely practical method of testing its 

 efficiency that will not in general require at least one season. 



A plough, for instance, may do admirable work, when only 

 the actual operation of ploughing is considered, but, as was 

 pointed out by a witness examined by the Departmental Com- 

 mittee,* the resultant crop may not be commensurate with the 

 apparent quality of the purely ploughing work accomplished. 

 A rotary cultivator may produce, or appear to produce, an 

 excellent tilth in one operation, but its work needs to be tested 

 by the touchstone of economics — which is to-day a crystal of 

 many facets. A drill may deposit seed and fertiliser ideally, 

 but its true value cannot be appraised until it has been estab- 

 lished how, among other things, the resulting crop has tillered. 



The solution of the first of these three problems must be 

 mainly sought on the lines of the closest co-operation between 

 the mechanician and the soil physicist, to whom must be added 

 the botanist and the plant pathologist. 



The two other problems scarcely admit of independent solu- 

 tion; they are inextricably intertwined with one another. The 

 task of producing in mass an implement that cannot, according 

 to present method, be fully tested in less than a season is one 

 that makes many demands upon the manufacturer. It is true, 

 as has been indicated above, that he has the collected experience 

 of centuries to help, nor is he without means, commensurate 

 with the extent of his business, of testing any new design or 

 proposed modification before it is placed on the market. Still 

 there is the danger, greater of course in smaller establishments, 

 lest either partiality to a design or inefficiency of test should 

 result in leaving on his hands a serious quantity of unmarket- 

 able stock, or, worse still, of placing in the hands of the farmer 

 a relatively inefficient tool. 



From such a danger an impartial testing organisation, fully 

 equipped with staff and material, would be a considerable safe- 

 guard. The fear lest the tendency of such a body would be to 

 suppress individuality and circumscribe the scope of private 

 enterprise is sufficiently dispelled by the whole history of such 

 institutions abroad. For a manufacturer who looks beyond his 

 own country for a market, the value of such an institute, ever 

 collecting and collating information from every quarter of the 

 globe, issuing a certificate which would be everywhere accepted 

 wdthout question, and offering, if desired, technical advice 



* [Cmd. 506] 1920 p. 61. 



