Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-29
USES OF MOTOR CARS.
Ideal Conditions for Owners in
Western Country.

Away out in the edge of Colorado is one
real estate firm that uses six touring cars
daily showing land to customers. and this
has become a. common thing for the real
estate dealers of the west, SO much moro
ground can they cover in this way, says
the December World. In the Pan
handle of Texas, to which excursions are
being run every month, every firm uses
cars In one place firm has the sale of
ranch lands twenty-five miles from the
railway station. To get a good track it
plowed a sixteen-inch furrow as straight
as could be drawn. turning over the sod
and leaving smooth, hard surface. Then
car was run over this route. with one
wheel in the furrow and the other whit
ened with flour, leaving mark on the
sod. Another furrow was turned. and
now there is straiGhtaway course of
twenty-five miles with two smooth, hard
tracks, and the cars, with seven passen-
gers. make the trip in forty -fve minutes
several times day.
No one in the western town gets SO
much practical good out of d car as the
Physicians. Distances are magnificent on.
the plains, and while settlement has adj
vanced the towns are far apart compared
with the east. The county-seat doctors
have clientage that reaches out twenty
miles in every direction. and with teams
and buggieS they find it almost Impossible
to cover it. With runabout they make
their 10 to 100 miles day and are sat
iSfied., Those who do not own cars pay
more than the cost of maintenance in hr-
ing them from livery1nen The motor car
has done more for the physicians prac-
tice than anything the west has ever dis
covered.
The editor of a country paper in the
west wrote four columns describing Our
New Auto after he had purchased a
machine. 1t was not necessary Out of
his 1900 subscribers probably one-tenth
knew more about motor cars than he did
himself: one-twentieth owned cars. and as
many more will by next spring. Twenty
two cars were photographed on the
streets of a prairie town one day last
summer, and ten more owned in town
We're absent. Trips to the mill with a few
odd sacks of wheat, or to the market with
the fresh vegetables are ways in which the
western farmers are utilizing their cars
1t is becoming a possession as common in
the western country town as it is in the
eastern city.
The problem of the car in the country
town Is entirely different from that of the
city owner. Wages are not so high and
the conditions inspire a greater self-reli-
ance on the part of the motorists. Take
a SPECIFIC instance of a town two hundred
miles west of the Missouri river. in CEN
tral Kansas 1t is a typical prairie CITY of
less than five thousand persons The auto
mobile was introduced at first by several
poor secondhand machines and ONLY two
years ago did the first standard machine
make its appearance. Now there are TWEEN
ty cars, one-fourth of them touring cars.
the remainder runabouts. Otners are be-
ing added every month Many farmers
are puylng, several mail carriers have
ruhaoouts with which to cover their rural
routes. and livery with automobiles for
hire does good business
western roads, in the prairie states es-
peclauy. are very fine eight months of the
year They are free from stones gener-
any. and hills are moderate. all tending
TO encourage the motorst 1t is because OF
THESE conditions that it is becoming pos
siole for the man with moderate means to
own car. There Is so little amusement in
the plains region-the mountains and the
lakes are nearly thousand miles away
and motoring opens up wide new field
LOT pleasure When one may drive thirty
to fifty miles in an evening over dirt roads
that are as smooth as asphalt, with
prairie breezes blowing health and rest
such roads tire troubles are reduced to a
minimum. ~