Recently I discovered 3 types of recorded music hidden away under some rubbish in a back room here at Ag Heritage Museum. Not exactly a farming discovery, but very interesting!
The first discovery was a box of "paper music rolls" used in "player pianos". A player piano plays the music on these paper rolls represented by holes in the paper. Someone has to pump the pedals at the bottom of the piano to make the rolls go around and the music play.
The next discovery I made was a box full of round paper tubes. Inside of these tubes were more tubes. These tubes were actually recordings of music, as I later learned. They were invented by Thomas Edison to be played of the first "phonograph" also an Edison invention. These tubes are examples of the first recorded music. What a find!!! They all date to around the turn of the century. We have a "Gem Phonograph" that was made by Edison to play these tube type of recordings here at the Ag Heritage. I hope to get this phonograph running in the future so that I can play these "tube recordings" for museum visitors.
In that same back room I found a box of old "records", the flat disc kind. Not very exciting until I Googled the record name and found that this was a very early recording done by Thomas Edison that replaced the "tube type" of recording that I had also just discovered. The record was very thick and heavy compared to modern day records. Edison designed a phonograph to play the disc recording I found but sadly, we don't have this type of phonograph here at the museum.
Some very interesting discoveries here at Ag Heritage. Let me know when you plan to visit and I'll make sure I have these recordings handy for your group to examine.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Hi Bridget
You should plan on at least 2 hrs. for your visit to Ag Heritage. We'll show you around The Dairy Museum and the exhibits in the Bledisloe Hall (where the kids can wash clothes and see rooms set out from different periods of history) and then you can walk around the Village with parents and teachers. Each building has some information posted on it abt. it's history.
There are indoor and outdoor areas to have lunch and morning tea that Fonterra is furnishing for the school groups that visit Ag Heritage.
Thank you for your questions, Bridget. We hope to see you here at Ag Heritage soon.
Terry Harpe
You should plan on at least 2 hrs. for your visit to Ag Heritage. We'll show you around The Dairy Museum and the exhibits in the Bledisloe Hall (where the kids can wash clothes and see rooms set out from different periods of history) and then you can walk around the Village with parents and teachers. Each building has some information posted on it abt. it's history.
There are indoor and outdoor areas to have lunch and morning tea that Fonterra is furnishing for the school groups that visit Ag Heritage.
Thank you for your questions, Bridget. We hope to see you here at Ag Heritage soon.
Terry Harpe
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Transportation to Ag Heritage Museum
This week I will be sending out a letter to the area schools announcing a sponsorship agreement with Fonterra. Fonterra has agreed to help subsidise the cost of hiring a bus for visiting school groups and will be furnishing dairy product snacks at morning tea for the school children.
The admission cost to the Ag Heritage Museum is still only $2.00.
Call me, Terry Harpe, at 07-843-7990 or you can ask any questions you may have right here on the Ag Heritage blog
.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Neighbours making hay/ topdressing airplanes
I've just finished a new exhibit here at the museum about hay making. The neighbours helped out with the hay making as the 4 metre photo in the exhibit shows. There must be 20 people standing around the haystack as it is being built. Quite a change from today with contractors doing all of the work, which is one of the main points of the exhibit. The farmers have very little involvement in hay making these days.
It's interesting to see how the people around the hay stack are dressed and the expressions on their faces.
A hot job building those hay stacks and if they were poorly built, they would be ruined when it rained. because the stack would leak.
The other new exhibit here at Ag Heritage is about those wild men in their "flying machines" the topdressing pilots. Well it's about one man in particular, Ossie James and James Aviation. We've made a video about Ossie, his Tiger Moths, Fletchers and DC-3 airplanes. We found some great old film of the early planes topdressing and included that footage in our video.
It was very interesting putting this "Topdressing" exhibit together. I met some of the early pioneers in the topdressing industry such as Guy Robinson of Robinson Air Services who also worked out of the Hamilton Airport when James Aviation was there.
It's interesting to see how the people around the hay stack are dressed and the expressions on their faces.
A hot job building those hay stacks and if they were poorly built, they would be ruined when it rained. because the stack would leak.
The other new exhibit here at Ag Heritage is about those wild men in their "flying machines" the topdressing pilots. Well it's about one man in particular, Ossie James and James Aviation. We've made a video about Ossie, his Tiger Moths, Fletchers and DC-3 airplanes. We found some great old film of the early planes topdressing and included that footage in our video.
It was very interesting putting this "Topdressing" exhibit together. I met some of the early pioneers in the topdressing industry such as Guy Robinson of Robinson Air Services who also worked out of the Hamilton Airport when James Aviation was there.
Welcome to our blog!
Welcome to the Ag Heritage and National Dairy Museum blog!Ag Heritage and the National Dairy Museum is located at Mystery Creek Events Centre, south of Hamilton, New Zealand.A visit to Ag Heritage is an opportunity to experience the life of the early settlers. An ideal day trip for groups of any size, Ag Heritage is both a fascinating historical experience, and an interactive learning centre with a story to tell. The National Dairy Museum reopened in November 2006 following a complete rebuild and is a great place to visit and reminisce or to learn about New Zealand's dairying history.Ag Heritage curator, Terry Harpe, will update the blog with news, images and stories from the Ag Heritage Village and National Dairy Museum and New Zealand's agricultural past.Stay tuned - and stay in touch - we'd love to hear from you!
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