General News
24 June, 2024
Half scale model of Ackland plow joins museum collection
From Sonny Johns, who worked from 1948 to 1971 (23 years) and was a ‘master welder’ at Ackland’s Implement Works in Rupanyup for many years
Decades ago many district farmers used Ackland’s skeleton mould-boards ploughs, where the largest plough the company made was a ‘ten furrow’.
The plough in the photo (above) has horse levers on it and a full size one would probably have had six horses in front of it.
After the war when tractors were being used more, the farmers would bring their horse drawn ploughs into Ackland’s and we would replace the horse levers with tractor levers.
Then later still the plough would come back again to Ackland’s and the tractor levers would be replaced with hydraulics.
With the introduction of the ‘Ackland Cultivator Bar’, broad acre farming changed, furrow ploughs soon became obsolete.
Where a seven furrow plough would turn over a strip four foot-six wide, a sixty foot air seeder is the equivalent of fourteen ploughs side by side, but of course you have to have a bigger power tractor and also bigger everything else.
The plough was once looked upon as the most important implement on the farm, but today it is the boom spray.
Now that the plough, scarifier and harrows, are no longer used in farming, this has spelled the end of the blacksmith.
Today everything is made in a jig and a MIG or TIG welder is used, while different materials are used in their manufacture.
The model Slush Box (pictured) was made so that Arthur or Allan Ackland could put it in the ute and take it to a customer's farm, or to a show to demonstrate how it worked,
Ackland’s made hundreds of them and we used to make ten at a time.
History
The company commenced operation in Jung in 1902 and employed 20 blacksmiths and fabricators including five Ackland sons in the business. That business ceased operations at Jung in 1946.
In Rupanyup’s Main Street a plaque and agricultural machinery commemorate the contribution made to the agricultural industry by Ackland & Sons (Rupanyup) 1932-1986.
Ackland & Sons were the manufacturers of the "Acky Bar" the world’s first wide span broadacre cultivator.
Ackland is an historic name in the Wimmera. Ackland and Sons ran a busy agricultural machinery-manufacturing firm at Rupanyup after shifting from Jung in the 1930s. The business became renowned across agricultural Australia for the breakthrough ‘Acky Bar’ ploughing implement.
Ackland and Sons manufactured tillage machinery in Rupanyup until its closure under the management of great grandson John Ackland in 1986.