Kōrero: Farm mechanisation

An electric tractor works alongside a horse team in Canterbury in the 1930s. The electric tractor was developed in Ashburton to increase local demand for electricity. Although the machine looked cumbersome, with its pivoted turret through which the feeder cable was passed from a transformer on a nearby truck, it worked quite well. The eight machines built managed over 8,000 hours work between them. However, tractors driven by oil fuels proved cheaper to run.