Electrification

Mechanization has to be considered in detail separately, but as to electrification we shall consider in short its major applications.

'The first application of electricity to agriculture is electri­cal prime movers. Not unfrequent are at present the instanc­es when from one to two hundred electric motors operate on a collective or state farm. Electric motors as a matter of fact take care of all stationary work. They operate irrigation, pumps, threshing and fanning as well as grain-drying units along with other installations connected with field husband­ry. Electrical machines supply water to the cowhouse and when necessary heat it, cut ensilage, actuate milking ma­chines, prepare provender in the feed-processing building, feed it to the cattle, remove barnyard manure.

Electric incubators hatch chicks and ducklets, while eggs arc electrically gathered, graded and packed "on the line".

Sheep are nowadays being sheared electrically; this is by far quicker and more efficient than the old hand-method while the clip is greater and of higher quality.

The electric drive actuates various machines in farm-work­shops; it is indispensable with saw-frames; it replaces the energy of the wind or falling water at mills. Electricity is likewise operative in warming hotbeds and thus contributes to the forcing of vegetables.

Of late electricity has found a new sphere of application as the source of ultraviolet and infrared rays which contrib­ute to good metabolism and generally to the growth and healthy development of young domestic animals. Ultraviolet irradiation units are effective in preventing and curing rachitis. Ultraviolet units with bactericide lamps help to clean contaminated air in cowhouses and other premises and we can see them again at work sterilizing vessel and water. On the fields — in seed-bed preparation and harvesting — electricity is so far being used to a comparatively small extent, but the day is near when electric ploughing and other field-work will become routine practice.

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