Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1902-08-26
FARMHAND'S JOB IN PERIL.
TRACTION ENGINES DOING HIS
WORK IN THE WEST.

Farms Getting Bigger Out There and
Machinery Used to Run Them-The
Work Done Better and Cheaper.
Improvement in the Farmers Lot.
"The farmhand's finish is in plain
sight" said man to a Sun reporter
who had just returned from the West.
And the farm horse is headed down
the same pike. In their stead is com
ing the little choo-choo engine of the
traction type.
"Out in the prairie region the ten
deney is all toward big farms. The
agricultur& unit out there has been
the quarter section or 100 acres.
Few of the farmers are satisfied
now with such small bunch of land,
and they are reaching out all the time
for more. Wheat and corn have been
topping the market at such prices
that nearly every fellow is crazy to go
into raising them on a good, big scale.
And they have the money and the in
telligence to do it and do it profitably.
Right here is where invention
comes in. On the ordinary farm,
where two or three men with the
same number of teams of horses can
do all the work, it isn't really neces-
sary to call on the machine man for
artificial aid, but when the farming
is done on a big scale it pays better
to buy a traction engine. These are
not the ordinary big clumsy attach
ments to threshing outfits, but com
pactly built little fellows, with gaso-
line as the motive power.
with them there is no need of get
ting out at ungodly hours in the
morning to feed and water a lot of
animals. Five minutes work fills the
tank and makes the machine ready to
do your ploughihg, narrowing or culti-
waiting.
"The first cost of these engines is
pretty steep, from $1,000 up, but it
costs less to run them than it does to
feed horses, and they never get balky.
They last longer than the average
workhorse and they do ten times as
much work in day.
"Out in Nebraska / ran across a
fellow with a gang plough, five in a
row, hitched to one of these little en-
gines, and it was steadily moving
across the hundred-acre field and tear
ing up the sod at a lively rate. This
same man told me that when it came
to narrowing he tackled on two or
three big ones and did the job in a
fourth of the former time.
Potatoes are planted and dug up
with these engines. In planting large
dropper is used and in digging them
a special kind of plough is employed.
When it comes time in the fall to
thresh the engine is coupled to sep
arator and the job is done in short
order If it is necessary during the
winter to grind feed for the cattle it is
the work of but a few minutes to fire
it up and start the mill. When grain
is to be hauled to market several farm
wagons are attached and the process
sion moves off.
There is scarcely thing about
farm work that these machines will
not do, and they are growing more
popular every year. The average
farmer thought the acme of comfort
and perfection had been reached in
the sulky plough and the riding cllti-
vator, which saved him many wee-y
steps, and it has not been without
considerable trouble that he has been
induced to take sp the traction en-
CINE.
Hundreds of these are now being
manufactured and sold every year.
The company sends an agent out to
show the farmer how to run the af-
fair ana how to employ it in various
labor-saving ways. 1t doesn't take
long to learn this, and the cost of
keeping one running is only a few
cents an hour.
"Sixty-cent wheat and fifty-cent corn
are making Western farmers, where
thirty bushels of wheat ana sixty Of
corn is an average yield, Independents
Iy rich. A hundred acres of wheat is
an ordinary field, and this alone is
enough to net good income on the
| investment.
II VI NdIlAC WAAA pay ShO ga
penses, and his other crops are vel
vet. The result has been to run up
the price of land.
"Traets shat sold for SIS two years
ago bring $40 and $45, and $50 land of
past years is easily marketable at $50
and $50. The life is much easier, the
work is not nearly so hard, nor the
hours so long.
This has had the good effect of
making the farmers sons more con-
tent with life on the farm, and many
of them go down to the State agricul-
tural schools and take course in
scientific agriculture, returning better
farmers and better citizens,
1.-The rural free mail delivery, with
its facilities for keeping in touch with
| the life of the outside world, and the
bicycle as substitute for the car
rage are also helping in the work OF
popularizing agriculture.