The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1892-10-26
STEAM ON THE HIGHWAY.
HOW A WESTERN FARMER TILLS HIS
SOIL AND MARKETS HIS PRODUCE.

L "A n -
a Farmer Who Is a Genius in His Line--He
P,ows With Traction Engine, and
Pulls Wheat to Market With 1t.
From the Stockton Mail.
Peter Chalmers, farmer of Farming
ton, is q genius in his line. When any
thing new comes out he studies to see
whether it cannot be adapted to use on
his farm
For one thing, he has applied helmet
oil cups to greasing wagon wheels. lie
has score of grain wagons, all OF them
supplied with these cups, and all the
wheels can be creased 10y means of them
in ten or fifteen minutes-a job which
would require an hour or more without
them.
All the blowing done on Chalmers big
ranch is done with a traction engine,
and during the last blowing season he
ran the engine day and night, having
three shifts of men. A locomotive head
light was employed to illuminate the
path ahead and another was used to
throw light on the plows
Now the farmer is hauling wheat to
town with his engine. He brought
load ia recently and stored it at the
Stockton warehouse. There were nine
wagons in the train, and each carried
38 sacks of grain. Each sack weighs,
on an average, 1877 pounds, so each wa
gon loap was 9,316 pounds and the ag-
gregate of the nine wagon loads 80, 844,
or nearly AZ tons.
The farmer has $4,000 sacks of wheat
TO haul, some OF it belonging to the
neighbors.
els it much cheaper to bring the
wheat in this way than it would be to
ship by rail?" asked Mail reporter of
Mr.. Chalmers.
"Well," was the reply, II can't say
positively that it is any cheaper at all,
but think it is. You see, this is only
my third trip, and haven't been able to
cast up accounts yet. The wheat I'm
bringing now comes from near Farming
ton, which is seventeen miles from Stock
ton, and it would cost $1.10 ton to get
IL here by rail- Some of the wheat I'm
going to haul is farther away, and to
transport it on the railroad would cost
$3.50 a ton. don't think it will cost me
q dollag a ton on the longest haul. -
"Where does the saving come in?'
"Weil, one has to load his wheat any
how, and if he ships it by cars, he's got
to unload and then load it on the cars.
That requires men and time. This way
all we We got to do is to load it in the
9ieId-the warehousemen do the rest. 1t
requires only three NEE co take care OF
our train-an engineer, fireman, and
man to look out for the wagons and see
that hey don't get hot boxes The
only expense of hauling, therefore, is
the wages of the men and the cost of the
coal used"
SHUT" sa d the reporter, "theres the
interest on the mo ley in the en- CINE which
cost
-Four thousand five hundred"
"And then there's repairs and the
steady wear of the machine and you've
got lot of money invested in wagons.
You would need only couple of wagons
to haul to the railroad, but this way you
need Dozen"
~Oh, need the wagons and engine on
my farm, anyhow" was the reply.
In further conversation Mr.. Chalmers
said it would not be feasible to haul
grain AS he does except on level and
good roads. Hhe only trouble he ex
perienced was in crossing small bridges,
which he haG to brace up on the first
"trip. The tender carries water sufficient
for only twelve hours consumption, but
water is pumped into 1t from watering
troughS along the road.
1t might seem foolish 10 say that the
wagons follow one another around cor
ners ia the same path, since as a matter
of course they would do SO, but people
often ask the farmer what sort of gear
ing he puts on his wagons to make them
follow the lead,
The engine can haul the train at the
rate of four and half miles an hour, but
20 prevent jolting the speed is regulated
to about three miles an hour.
A Safe Remedy.