The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1913-09-16

on the market to-day. This was seven
years before any auto was built.
The sheet music upon which this
advance drawing was made has been
lost. Mrs. Ford is constantly search
ing for it. The dynamo and threshing
machine which figured so greatly in
Ford's early life have been preserved.
The threshing machine was sold for
junk by the farmer who owned it,
traded in the local market for a new
one, and after long search Ford
traced it to a small town in Pennsyl-
vania. Today he has in proud pos
session on his farm on the banks of
the River Rouge nearly all parts of
the original threshing machine.
Within the last month Ford pur-
chased the dynamo and engine which
he ran at the Edison company.
Slight in build, weighing $50 pounds
quick, active and able to vault a fence
like boy, he has the appearance of
being much younger than his fifty
years would warrant. Close business
associates of Ford maintain that upon
the hard, undaunted, stubborn disci-
pline of this man has depended the
success of the institution, not yet ten
years old, which daily turns out 1000
finished autos.
The Ford plant today includes the
largest machine shop in the world.
The famous Krupp plant at Essen,
Germany, is not SO extensive, nor does
it employ SO many men, although
Krupp has most of the Governments
of Europe as customers. Economy of
construction is the main idea. Engine
castings are all cast into bed where
forty-five holes are bored in the casing
at once, the whole operation taking
very little more than one minute. The
machine cost $4,000 and the workman
receives 81 cents an hour, although
one man and one machine are doing
the work of forty-fve men and doing
it with accuracy. There has never
been strike and the demand for
work by applicants is constant. In the
neighborhood of 1900 employees are
on the Ford payroll. The business is
to be more than doubled. Contracts
have been let for building two huge
additions, each 1900 feet long and
900 feet wide. The big engine, the
largest of it's kind in the world, is to
have twin helper, and so the Wes-
tern Pittsburg will continue to grow
until it has passed far beyond the linn
it's of the present steel city "dowr
East"
Henry Ford is man of very modest
desires, so far as living is concerned
Yet those daily associated with hin
state that he is as eager to further
the success of the Ford company today
as when it was started. Statesmen have
tried their best to offer suggestion
to change the appearance OF the Fore
car, but after careful consideration
the answer of Ford is always: mo
= STREE, Bob; there will be no fussines'
4 as far as decorations go on the Fore
car"
Ford is an extremely keen lover O
j nature. He believes John Burrough
= the greatest naturalist the world ha
n ever klrJ n. Ford has read everything
n BurrouAns has written and will oftel
i startle his friends by saying, DO yol
n remember the statement made on pag
Il SIS of volume 1872 Next to Burrough
y in the estimation of Ford comes Ed
7 son, who he believes to be the great
4 est inventor the world has ever seer
Last spring Ford had 500 birds 0
y all kinds sent to him from Englan
= with the intention of building an i'm
: mense aviary on his Dearborn farm
81 When the birds arrived they wore wha
Y seemed to Ford homesick look. Tha
night, when the birds, costing betwee
So, 900 and $4,000, were held prison
ers on the River Rouge farm, was
night of torture to Ford, and early
the morning, at sunrise to be exac
Ford arose quietly, slipped out of tn
house and liberated all the birds. Nc
long ago he saw one of his rare Eng
lish larks on the farm.
During the spring ploughing seaso
Ford, watching huge tractor marc
majestically across a field on the zoo
acre farm, was Mortified to see til
wheels about to crunch robins ne:
containing fosr blue eggs. With
cry Ford stopped the machine an
there it remained for ten days, unit
the little birds were Matched and ha
left the nest. No urging or debatin
with Henry Ford was able to chang
his mind, for the mother robin had
"squatter's" right and it was going
be respected. Wild animals of all sol
are very welcome on the Ford farm