Farm Machinery Film Records: Part 3 Testing & prototypes (DVD): Brian Bell

This programme uses extracts from a  collection of films made by the National Institute of Agricultural  Engineering over a period of about ten years from 1945. The Institute  had been established by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1942 with a  remit to design prototype farm equipment and publish test reports of  the performance of production tractors and farm machinery.

This programme includes clips taken  from the film records made while testing farm machinery and prototype  equipment at Askham Bryan, Yorkshire and Silsoe, Bedfordshire.  They  include manure spreaders and fertiliser drills, planters and crop  dusters, tractors, harvesters, horticultural aids and some  cultivation equipment. Some of the machines went successfully into  production; others are rarities whose development was curtailed.

The NIAE’s film record was  professionally made. The prints from which this compilation has been  drawn are in the collection of the British Agricultural Archive Film  Unit and are reproduced by courtesy of Richard Watts.

Brian Bell, author of 26 books and DVDs  on farm machinery, has researched the footage to provide an  informative commentary narrated by Chris Opperman. The original  material is silent, most in black and white, some in colour.

Fuller Contents

(Scene  selections in red)

Manure and  fertiliser James farmyard manure spreader Ferguson TE20 with FYM loader and  spreader Massey-Harris plate and flicker  fertiliser placement drill NIAE experimental fertiliser placement  machine

Planting and crop  protection Three-row Robot potato planter Russell transplanter Williams crop duster

Tractors NIAE hydrostatic tractor Maxim Power Steer tractor

NIAE tractor  testing Fordson Major with Perkins P6 engine Caterpillar D2 and D4 track comparisons

Harvesters Hume pea windrower Redpath forage harvester NIAE universal root harvester Wallace root harvester Marbeet sugar beet harvester

Land Reclamation Howard Rotary Hoe on a Fordson Evona disc harrow

Mechanical aids  to horticulture Wharton spade Barford Atom Colwood motor hoe British Anzani hoe Howard Bantam Rotary Hoes Gem Clifford A III.