The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1912-06-16
THE AGE OF SCIENCE
FORWARD MOVEMENT FOR BACK
WARD FARMERS MARKS THE
NEW ERA IN AGRICUL-
TURAL PROSPERITY.
itor of The Virginian

Editor OF me SlTE t1idHt
This article clipped from The
Utica Globe" tea, Fl is sent
with request you publish it. confident
IL will prove Instructive and interest
ing to your host OF cultured readers,
If not SO humorous as the essay on,
chicken stealing by an old chicken
thief furnished by MS honor, Justice
Crutchfield recently and was publish
ed nthe press. Success attend you,
which voc justly deserve.
Il j. ROGERS
Soldiers Home, Richmond. Va,
June 10, 1912.
About the iisest thing today is the
forward movement Tor backward
farmers. IL is the age OF the agricul-
turai school and the scientifically
trailfed farmer. The horse and the
mule and the man with the hoe
are passing rapidly away at least on
the vast fertile areas of the West.
Machinery now piows the land. plants
the seed and reaps the harvest. With
in the last few years farmers in the
West have been harnessins streams
on the farms Electricity is one If
the new hired men. Gasoline is an
other. Que or the other of them now
milks Inc cows. cuts the hay and Tod
der. pumps the water, separates and
churns the milk, turns the grindstone
and does all the other drldgery OH
the place. Big traction engines. like
highly magnihed automobiles TIL the
soil and take the harvest To mar
ket.
There are about 1000. 00o farmers
In the United States who annually
pillow an area equal to all the States
east of the Mississippi and north of
the ohio. a solitary plowman and
his horses would have to walk eight
and one-quarter miles To piow an
acre of ground. Some of the me
chanical plows, at present in use, turn
as many as Il rty burrows at once and
cover from seventy-five to ninety
acres day, and 1t only takes two
men to manage one of these big mon
sters. Unlike the horse, the engine
never tires. In Canada, where the
seasons are short. they run these huge
plows night and day.
A traction engine draws the great
clod crushers that follow the plows.
A tractor hauls the rank of seeders
that plan9 the grim at gae rate
of 40 or 5u acres day. In The har-
vest FIVE ,reapearss ara attached tn
each engine and cut from 200 TO seo
acres a day. The threshing is done
with one traction engine and another
is used to haul a train of from eight
10 ten wagons to town. More than
1000 bushels are transported in this
way at single trip. These tractors
ha rftta Ik.nt
half miles an hour, or about the or
binary walking speed OF team of
horses.
A train Of five huge harvesters in
tow of a tractor cutting through a
field of standing wheat Is an impress
sive sight. They are arranged in a
sort of diagonal tandem, A bell cord
connects them with the engine. so
that II one of the machines is dis
abled the signal can be given, in
stantly to the engineer. At shs sig
nal the hitching up of the harvesters
Is so adjusted that the machine next
in order takes UP the cut of the dis
abled machine, and the line moves
forward without losing any time,
though with IA diminished swath.
When the machine that is out of or
der is repaired 1t is coupled on again
and the work goes forward as before
During the rush season these huge
reaping machines work night and
day. They are fitted with great head
lights and the men work In shifts OF
eight hours each.
Motors of myriad kinds are doing
the work OF the farmer and the farm
er's wife. They load hay. they shear
sheep, they drill wells, they run spray