road verges on rural roads - NERC Open Research Archive ...

tractor or pedestrian operated forms are available for use in places inaccessible
to larger machines.
Rotary cutters, as noted, are best used on the flat or small angles of Slope
and are most connoonly used for amenity cutting in urban areas or on prestige <strong>road</strong>s
in the country. Because they cut the vegetation rather than macerating it, they
need less power and are faster. Hand and mini-tractor operated forms are again
available and are useful in places inaccessible to full scale tractor equipment.
Cylinder mower machines are only suitable for use in intensively managed
high-amenity situations, and are not of interest in the context of this report.
They are unlikely to be more widely used because of the high risk of damage to the
cutters from stones and litter, their inability to cut coarse vegetation and the
need for a smooth unobstructed surface on which to operate.
The reciprocating cutter bar haymower, now almost entirely replaced by the
flail, was, even in its more sophisticated modifications, essentially an agricultural
machine. Not being purpose-designed for use on <strong>road</strong>sides and similar areas it was
essentially a stop-gap between the hand labour of the lengthsmen and the coming of
modern equipment. It had two major drawbacks in not being sufficiently robust, and
in the need in many situations to pick up and cart away the cut grass, unless the
vegetation was frequently mown and cuttings were too short to pose a problem.
Nevertheless it had some advantages: the power requirement was low because the
vegetation was cleanly cut at the base so that the height and volume to be cut was
immaterial. In the hands of a skilled operator it was quicker and less tiring to
operate (requiring less concentration and being quieter with less vibration and
dust), especially in its mid-mounted form. The width of cut was 4 to 5 feet, rather
more than the average sidelnounted flail, which contributed to the faster speed of
cutting, but with the modern trend to single swath cutting (see below) this
increased width would not necessarily be an advantage. Although the cut vegetation
following the use of a cutter bar was always regarded as a problem, it was not
always collected, and one difficulty that did arise was with mats of dead material
blocking the knives of the cutter bar itself on the occasion of a return visit.
The cutter bar was competitive in cost per acre cut (see below under Costs) with the
rear mounted flail and considerably cheaper to operate than the side mounted flail.
There are still many situations in which the cutter bar would be as efficient a
machine for <strong>road</strong>side grass cutting as any of the others available, especially if
management regimes were operated that prevented the grass growing to a length that
produced problems of disposal of the cuttings after it was mown.
With rear mounted machines of all sorts a difficulty arises with the cutting
of vegetation that has been flattened by the tractor wheels going before. These