Pastures Past: Conserving electricity on the farm in 1947

In 1947, electricity cuts meant farmers were asked to choose between a hot meal and a hot bath. Photo / Unsplash, Alicia Christin Gerald

Kem Ormond takes a look at the world of farming back in the day.

What a difference it must have made to life on the farm when electricity finally arrived.

Everyday tasks that once demanded back-breaking effort suddenly became easier, faster, and more efficient.

In 1929, The Feilding Star reported this was not just a relief for the farmer, but “the farmer’s wife has also benefited”.

From milking machines to electric stoves, modern conveniences began to lighten the load.

However, the increased demand for power soon brought its own challenges.

For example, the Whanganui Chronicle reported in 1947 that power cuts were becoming more common.

This forced families to make tough choices: a hot bath and a lukewarm dinner, or vice versa - “but they can’t have both,” engineer, Mr. H. Webb said.

Electricity as the farmer’s servant

The Feilding Star

Oroua and Kiwitea Counties’ Gazette

Thursday, October 31, 1929

Feilding folks are now quite familiar with the advantages of electricity as more than a convenience in the home, office, and factory.

It is now actually a very real necessity.

Let the power go off for even ten minutes, and we know all about that.

In Feilding and district many appliances attachable to the use of electric power are being introduced and readily adapted by an enterprising people who are quick to appreciate the convenience and labour-saving qualities of the devices.

It has been well pointed out that life on the farm is not what it used to be.

The farmer has found a new hired man, through whose help drudgery has been banished, with much weary, back-breaking toil.

In the change, the farmer’s wife has also benefited, and so have his children, to say nothing of the cows, the poultry, the pigs, and other inhabitants of the farm.

An advertisement from a supplement in the Te Awamutu Courier, July 26, 1937. Image / Papers Past

It is interesting to count the blessings that are provided by this new helper — Electricity.

An American authority tells us that there are no fewer than 227 profitable and helpful uses of electricity on the modern farm alone.

Electricity pumps the water, shreds the fodder, husks the corn, separates the milk; grinds bones, food, fertiliser and sausage; cleans bags and hoists grain into the bins; dries, bales and elevates hay; heats water, hotbeds and incubators; helps ventilation in the house and the stock sheds, and also traps insects in the orchard and garden or thieves in the poultry run.

It cools or warms, sterilises, or pasteurises, and bottles the milk.

It stimulates plant growth and furnishes refrigeration.

It shears sheep and sprays whitewash and insecticides.

In the homestead, it does everything that electricity can do in a city home, including the operation of the player piano.

But we in New Zealand have not yet reached the economic stage that has been achieved over in some of the States of America with regard to electricity.

For instance, in the use of electrical power, over there 5d (10 cents) will pay for any one of the following tasks: Cook for two persons for one day, do family washing for one week, run the vacuum cleaner 10 hours, operate the milking machine one hour and 20 minutes, separate 1,500 pounds of milk, heat a 150 egg incubator for two days, saw one and two-thirds cords of wood, pump 500 gallons of water, run a windmill three hours or cool a refrigerator for 12 hours.

California’s farmers claim to be the heaviest users of electric energy, as there are 55,000 electrified farms in that State.

Altogether, more than 500,000 farms in the United States are served by electric-light and power companies.

In 1924, there were, in the State of Illinois only 2,201 farms provided with central station service.

But on January 1, 1929, there were 13,284 electrified Illinois farms.

Indiana has 15,163 farms getting such service.

It does not prove a wise thing nowadays to sneer at the possibilities of applied electrical energy, for we have the wonders of wireless and other modern miracles to confound and confute the sceptical.

Research is working marvels so frequently that even Doubting Thomas is no longer a doubter.

Yet what do we think when it is seriously stated that investigators have now turned their attention to that greatest of all tasks on the farm, ploughing, with a view to its elimination!

How? By electrifying the soil!

Actually, an electric plough that also radiates a current into the earth is now under test in America.

What it can do has yet to be reported—it may be one of the surprises of 1930.

Heavy demands on electricity compel economical use

Wanganui Chronicle, March 8, 1947

No further power cuts have been imposed in the Wanganui-Rangitikei Power Board’s district since the emergency period earlier in the week, but the engineer, Mr. H. Webb, stressed yesterday that electricity must be conserved.

One effort to bring about reduced consumption is the restriction placed on hot water services on farms.

“We have had no further trouble, but we have had warnings that we must keep our power consumption down,” said Mr. Webb.

“Otherwise, more cuts will be introduced.”

Urging people to conserve electricity as much as possible, Mr. Webb said that the demands on power were heavy.

Where time-switch controls were installed, hot water services on farms and in homes were being restricted.

Where these services were previously out for four hours each day, they are now being switched off for 10 hours daily.

“People can have a hot bath and a cold meal, or a hot meal and a lukewarm bath, but they can’t have both,” Mr. Webb added.

“In England, many people have neither.”

- Source: Papers Past