Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-07-02

power engine supplies the power, driv
ing four-pole dynamo and furnishing
a current of so amperes at 500 volts
Electricity is used for everything
lighting and heating the buildings, as
well as for operating the farm i'm
plements, and for stimulating the
growth of the plants, destroying in
sects and even for protecting the
plants from late and early frosts Port.
able transformers are employed. so
that the heavy currents can be used at
any part OF the field for any kind of
a small implement. The electric mo-
tors which drive the agricultural ma
chinery are likewise portable. which
simplifies the work of operating the
different classes of machinery in wide
| ly separated parts of the field.
PIow q Problem.
Electric blowing has been the most
difficult thing TO accomplish in this
line. and it is only by repeated fail
ures that anything like success has
been attained. Our great western
wheat and corn fields harvesting by
steam or electric machines have been
successfully prosecuted for years; but
the electric pillow is modern and very
recent innovation.
There are several types of electric
plows invented and in use. The auto
mobile pillow is used with best effect
for certain kinds of work This nipple
ment consists of an ordinary cultiva-
tor on wheels, and on top there is at
tached an electric motor driving the
wheels. One pillow of this type operat-
ed by electricity has a series of knives
which cut into the soil and turn it
over; on large fields the towing system
appears to give the most satisfactory
results.
BY means of cable and drum the
pillow is driven across the field by an
electric motor, and the operator,
mounted on the forward part of the
pillow, can regulate the instrument to
suit himself. The two cables used for
this purpose are insulated, and they
wind and unwind on a drum placed |
on the pillow. Both surface !
and subsoil plows are operated in for
ward and backward gangs, cutting the |
soil from a few feet to 20 and more in |
width.
The contest is really between steam,
gasoline and electricity. The day of
the horse as a heavy laborer on Ameri-
can farms promises soon to end, and
the machinery will more and more be
operated by one of these three motive
powers mentioned. The trackless troll
ley farms have today doomed up as eX
detrimental investments which thor
Dughly work out all that was claimed
for them. With cheaper power derived
rom the river and water falls. cleo
ricity will extend to all parts of the
country, and small and large farming
will be operated thereby.
Electric power is cheaper than horse
power, even when ordinary fuel is used
o operate the engines, and when the
power can be supplied from some river
t will be far cheaper than steam in
my form.
Conditions at present promise the
Unfolding of one of the greatest epochs
n our agricultural history. The past
lalf century has been remarkable for
is agricultural machinery, but in the
text 80 years the use of electric power
'or cultivating our farms, stimulating
md planting and harvesting crops will
ar eclipse in Importance anything
yet achieved. In the new era of cleo
rical farming the industry will at
ract men who now look upon farm
work as drudgery and the appearance
IF this new type of man in our fields .
md orchards will tend even more to
.reate revolutiOnizing changes. {