Abstract
THE Institute for Research in Agricultural Engineering, University of Oxford, has been taken over by the Ministry of Agriculture to form the nucleus of a new national institute which has been established at Askham Bryan, near York. The general function of the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering will be to foster the development and better utilization of agricultural machinery of all kinds. Its work will be organized in three main departments. The Agricultural Department will provide a clearing-house for information about machines and methods for the benefit of both farmers and manufacturers ; and will aim both at bringing equipment needs to light and at suggesting the means by which they can be met. The Engineering Department, which is to be adequately equipped with drawing office and workshops, will be concerned directly with design and improvement. In the case of new inventions, it will provide the necessary link between the original idea and the device which is ready for development, by undertaking the final stages of design and constructing prototype machines. The Field Station Department will be equipped to carry out whatever tests, trials or demonstrations may be required. One of its main duties during wartime will be to try out, adapt and demonstrate in other districts, labour-saving devices and methods which individual farmers up and down the country have worke l out for themselves. The Institute willbe guided in its work by the Agricultural Machinery Development Board, which was set up earlier in the year under the chairmanship of Lord Radnor. The director of the new Institute is Mr. S. J. Wright, formerly director at Oxford.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
National Institute of Agricultural Engineering. Nature 150, 87 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150087a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150087a0