The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1912-01-19
Gasoline or Oats?
Autos VS.. Horses

HulOS VS.. IIOIScS
THE annual automobile number Of
Harper's Weekly, issued Jan. 6. con-
tains an article under the heading
Gasoline or Oats,'' which gives q
pretty good idea of the rapdjity
with which automobiles are displac-
ing horses in the large cities, not
only for pleasure but for heavy
street traffic. The matter is one of
considerable interest to all lovers of
the horse and especially to the rails
ers of fine draft horses here on San
Juan island. which have heretofore
found ready sale at high prices in
the neighboring cities. The writer
of the article referred to says:
From the best figures available
more than $50, 900 cars of all kinds
will be produced in the United
Staes in 1912. Less than $4,000
was the product of 1904. There
are now nearly 600. 900 automobiles
in active use besides more than
100000 motor-trucks. The total
expenditure for automobiles and
their maintenance during the last
ten years has been over thousand
million dollars. 1t locks as though
! gasoline oats-w0uld be the
motive power on the streets and
highways by the close of this decade.
Thelatest equine census shows the
horse is now only not increasing in
numbers, but is falling back. There
are fewer horses now than there were
in1900. Government figures just
issued give the value Of the auto
mobiles produced in 1904 as $780,
034 900. In 1909 the annual crop
was appraised at $249, ,202, 900.
That the horse will have to go-
will have to give place to the auto
mobile-in the near future Seems
beyond question. He has proved too
costly for modern conditions.
The wise business man every
where has been studying the gaso-
line and oats problem and solving it
| in the same way. Paris. London,
New York all the big cities are
saying goodbye to the horse. In
Paris and London horse-drawn om-
Inibuses were the feature for years
They have almost PISSED out Of ex-
istence now. Since 1900 the num-
Der of horses in use in these two
cities has been decreasing at the
rate OF more than three thousand
a year. In Cleveland and Detroit,
two great centers of the automo-
bile indsutry, the motor car is even
farther ahead than in New York.
In Cleveland there are two motor
vehicles for every one drawn by
horses; in Detroit the proportion
is two and one-half to one. Thi.
incl ldes all kinds of vehicles, and
the count was made in places where
much heavy trucking was being
done. In New York City one pleas
ant afternoon two men stationed
themselves at the corner of Fifth ave-
nue. and Fortieth Street and count
ed every vehicle that passed in a
half-hour. The pleasure cars out
numbered the carriages by l63 to
/. Ten years ago the result of such
a tabulation would have been the
reverse. Horses are now so scarce
on Fifth avenue that people con-
ment on them as curiosities.
Many persons who have studied
the case of the auto VS.. the horse ara
of the opinion that within ten years
the use of horses will be forbidden
upon the streets in the congested
parts of cities. One of these ex-
perts asserts that by 1920 not a
horse will be allowed south OF Four
teenth street on Manhattan island.
Another authority says that to-day
the horse is hampering business in
the crowded delivery sections OF
cities and that horse drawn vehicles
take up so much room that in New
York City alone, if the horse were
done away with, three hundred d
miles Of streets could be saved.
There is just 90 much roadway in
every city. In New York the
municipality has been widening
many Of the great thoroughfares 50
as to give more room for the vehi-
cles. A horse drawn wagon takes
up almost twice the space occupied
BY motor car and does not move
one-t third as FIST. The slower vehi
cles sets the pace Of the stream Of
traffic. Theresare about one hundred
and fifty thousand truck-borses in
service every day 10 New York.
j y00a . II