The Friends Of Fagan Park are going to dismantle and scrap a old seed drill. The seed/fertilizer drill was manufactured by H.V.McKay P/L in Victoria.
Hugh Victor McKay (1865 – 1926) he was a farmer and engineer in Victoria in the late 1800’s, he developed horse drawn farming equipment with factories at Sunshine and Ballarat in Victoria.
The company grew in size over the years and at its peak employed 3,000 personnel, and formed a partnership with Canadian Company Massey–Harris, the range of machinery expanded to headers, chaff cutters, cane cutters, hay making, balers, field mowers, and much more and also equipment for the war effort in WW1.
The exact age of this seeder drill is not known but is most likely 1920’s to 1930’s. The model is a “Sunshine“ but no casting name marks are visible. It is a 14 row seeder used for the sowing of wheat, oats and barley.
Bagged seed grain would be poured into the wooden hoppers along the length of the machine, where simple adjustments would be made to regulate the feed rate of the seed to the speed of the motive power, be it horse or tractor.
14 rows approximately one foot apart would be sown in a shallow furrow and covered over in one pass of the paddock. A distributor disc would rotate around and around under the seed pushing a constant regulated amount of seed down a tube into the furrow in the ground. This seeder in the image will be dismantled by the Friends Of Fagan Park and scrapped.
Anyone who reads this article and would like any parts, I expect the wheels will be sort after, can contact the friends of Fagan Park and make a donation of your choice of how much to our on going work at Fagan park at Galston. Ring Ian 0419 435 475 or Vern 0405 703 413.
By Vern Sotter
