Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-19
Makers of Farm Machinery
Bv Frederic j. HaSkin

| ZSEz7 HE manufacturers of agrlcul-
A(rAA tural implements in the Unit
| ~ @sS ed States are holding their
81 annual convention in Chicago
"A this week, in conjunction with
| Ess the dealers in their product.
They are there many thou
sand strong and will discuss many in
teresting trade problems before the con-
Vention ends. That they have vast
| field of patronage to cater to is shown
/ by the fact that the farmers of the
! United states have nearly a billion dol
| lars invested in farm implements and
machinery. This is constantly wearing
| out and being replaced by new ma
| chinery, and it is estimated that the
average term in which 1t all must be
replaced is ten years. To build bill
| lion dollars worth of new machinery
every decade and sell it means work
and wealth for many men.
The man who is now four score years
| old has seen more progress in farming
! than all of the hundreds of generations
| that went before him. He has lived
| from the day of the little hand sickle
! to the time of the machines that cut,
! thresh, bag and weigh the wheat as it
| goes. He remembers the day of the
Dull tongue" shovel plow, the stumpy
| new ground and the OK team, and
sees his son handling a steam gang
/ -
ground in an hour as he could in two
| days. He sees the check-rower taking
| the place of a painful dropping of corn
from hill to hill by hand, and the mod
| ern force feed grain drill taking the
place of the "sower of seed" who spread
! it broadcast by hand Instead of the
scythe, the band rake and the pitchfort
for cutting and storing the hay, he
sees the mower, the tedder, the buggy
rake, the hay-loader and the horse
power hay fork.
Instead of the old-fashioned fail with
which the boys pounded out the wheat
| and rye and oats on the long winter
days, and of its successor, the ground
| hog thresher, he sees the up-to-date
threshing machine that handles as
much wheat in an hour as half dozen
men could thresh in week in the old
way. The road to market that was
once forty miles long and a succession
of mud puddles, is now a macadam
road that can be travelled in an hour.
And so the story of progress might be
reeled off for columns.
! Little wonder, then, that the statis-
ticians tell us that only about 80 per
cent of the people of the United States
today are engaged in growing the food
| and the fiber of the nation. Eighty
years ago over 80 per cent of them
| we're so engaged and they could not
raise enough for home consumption
| they had to buy from Europe. Today
| the per capita consumption is much
| higher than it was then, and we export
| enough to feed and clothe no mean ma
ton. and vet 80 per cent of the people
do all the farm work. If we were to cut
! cut the exports we now have, and add
as much in imports in proportion as our
| fathers imported, 1t would be found
that 25 per cent of our pepole are en-
gagged in doing the work that required
so per cent of thew seventy-five years
ago.
Although the United States has made
such remarkable progress in the re-
duction of the amount of labor required
| to grow a given quantity of food and
| fiber, the rest of the world has not kept
| mace, and is it estimated that even
now 20 per cent of the energy of all the
people of the world is directed to the
prime essential of life-the growing of
| things to eat and things to wear. Eu-
rope has largely failed to keep pace
with America, the labor supply being
So plentiful thatshap labor is cheaper
| in many farm operations than machine
| labor. And then it is obvious that the
| small farmer of Europe cannot aftord
/ to equip his farm as does the large
| farmer of America. HAN lne Worlu
still gains its living with the ma
chete, the bolo or the hoe.
Some have attributed the remarkable
growth of the agricultural interests or
| the United States to the railroads.
| However, statisticians show that it was
the agricultural interests that made the
| railroads When one comes 10 com
| pare the first fifteen years of the rail-
road with the first fifteen years of the
reaper and other farm machinery, he
sees conclusively that although the rail-
| road was first on the scene it was the
| later arriving reaper that enabled it to
take part in the development of the
| country
The United States leads the world
| in the manufacture of agricultural
implements, as we'll as in their use
In fact, nearly all of the nations OF
the earth get the greater part of their
farm machinery from the United
| States The capital invested in I'M
plement factories amounts to more
| than 5000, 900 900, while the value OF
the annual output amounts to about
| S125, 900, 000 The factories are turning
| out half a million cultivators year
the same number of harrows, nearly
three times as many plows, half a
million planters and drills and 100000
headers and binders. 1t is an inter
| esting fact that the money value OF
| the output of agricultural implements
NAV be roughly divided by three, har-
vesting machinery representing one
| third. cultivating machinery one third
and seeding and other machinery an