Staffing by research equipment to agricultural machine testing stations in Ukrainian lands in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to establish the procedure for forming the material and technical base of research at agricultural machine testing stations located in Ukrainian territories from the middle of the 19th century to the 1910s, as well as to clarify the factors influencing the dynamics of its state. Particular attention is paid to identifying common and divergent aspects in the relevant processes on the Ukrainian lands of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, given the ambiguous development of both the agricultural engineering industry and the mechanization of agricultural labor there. The research is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, within which general scientific and special historical methods are applied: analysis and synthesis, comparative, and problem-chronological. As a result of the conducted research, two stages of development were identified during the selected chronological section of machine testing activities in Ukrainian territories, which had a decisive influence on the formation of the order of equipping regional machine testing stations with research equipment, regardless of their state- territorial affiliation. One of these stages took place before the adoption in 1907 at the II International Congress on Agricultural Machine-knowledge of international rules for testing agricultural machinery, and the second – after that. The first stage was characterized by a situational approach to the process under study, while in the second stage it became more planned, however, the methods of organizing its financing remained the same at both stages, albeit with different levels of priority. Thus, at the first stage, preference was given as a source of financing to the commercial activities of machine testing stations, with the exception of the costs associated with their creation, which became possible only thanks to state financial support and the corresponding initiative of local agricultural public organizations. The role of both latter institutions in further financing the equipping of machine testing stations with research equipment became auxiliary, but only until the second stage of the development of machine testing in Ukraine, at which the state budget became the main source of financing for this process.