The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-02-12
No |
ELECTRICITY AS AN AID TO AGRICUL
TURE

In recent issue of Success, dis
cussing ''The Future of Electricity. i"
Thomas A. Edison, the inventor
said:
GLOW can it be applied to farming
machinery? Very readily and ad-
vantageously. This is a field in
which it can be made to work won
ders, in the next fifty years. The
farmer needs to have his oppressive
work made more of pleasure, for
he is, indeed, an all Important factor
in the worlds great sphere of use
fulness, and his absence from that
sphere would be more marked than
all the wonders that electricity has
created. The electrical plow, the
electrical thrasher, and electrical
dairy implements are not things tina
only fill the fancy of a dream.
earnestly believe that the next fifty
years will find them recorded in the
realm of fact.
"Already electricity has made a
notable advance in the mining in
| dustry, and it's application in the
separation of metals from ores shows
that in this respect it has not been
misapplied. Indeed, it has done
some marvellous work.
$50 it may be with farming i'm
plements, and with other machinery.
AS a manifestation of energy it will
stand supreme. AS science unfOlds
it's phenomena, it shows it more and
more to be the great motive power
of nature. Perhaps, in years to
come, it will be shown that all the
planets are controlled and kept in
their orbits by electricity"
Discussing this statement in the
January Success, Secretary of Agri-
culture Wilson says:
"The prediction of Mr.. Edison that
electricity will come to the rescue of
the farmer, during the next fifty
years, is likely to prove true-but
not in the way of heavy machinery.
1t will come about, in my opinion,
through the use of electricity in
transportation, mining and manu-
featuring. It is just a trife i'm
probable that anything will ever be
invented to take the place, for in
stance, of a team of horses for farm
work. Automobiles run smoothly
on level road, but not in mud.
''But electric railways are going
out into the country, radiating from
every town and city in America
Every one of these benefits the
farmer. City people move out, build
houses, beautify grounds, and come
into healthful contact with Mother
Nature. The farmer, not to be be-
hind, brightens up his own place a
bit, uses the trolley himself, enlarges
his horizon, and his market.
$50, too, works every other inven-
tiOn of the electrician Cf Edison's
class. Every electrical ore crusher-
put in operation means more work,
more villages, more men to feed.
Every improvement in electrical
power means more factories.
''The farmer is not slow to see
these advantages. The American
farmer is a business man, keen and
alert to grasp situations. Go where
you will, you find him better in
formed than his city neighbor ON
prices current, trade Developments
and supply and demand. He may
not know the details of the coming
out party of Miss SugarlOaf, or the
latest bit of club scandal; but he
subscribes for papers and magazines
that help him to get solid and timely
information, and he generally profits
by what he reads. Unlike the poor
creature whom the great French.
painter and our own distinguished
poet depicted, on canvas and in verse.
the American farmer is a gentleman
quite capable of taking care of him
self and Of showing to the world that
he is not in the Millet, but in the
EdisOnian class.
The most profita bic dairy COW is,
the one that helps you to make the
most butter in the winter. Butter
sells quicker then, brings more, and
leaves a better margin of profit
@-.%
Better farmers and better farming
is what our county needs. A farmer
who can grow twenty-five to thirty
bushels Of corn to the acre, ten to
thirty bushels of wheat, and one to