Arizona republican., 1914-02-15
TRACTOR TAKES
 PLACE IF HORSE
Manistee Ranch Displaces Sixteen Work HOrs e s With One Holt Caterpil- lar-Tests and Demon Strations Last Week

For the past week a demonstration of the Holt Caterpillar tractor has been held on the Manistee ranch owned by Louis Sands, half a mile north of Glendale, where the small Caterpillar has been showing just what it is equipped to do and where it was sue cesSful contestant against three other tractors in an efficiency test. A sale of the Caterpillar was arranged imme- diately MT Sands saw what it could l do and he will continue using it on his ranch where it will take the place of 1 some 16 horses.
 | The Caterpillar is the same interest | ing tractor which F. E. Davis, agent i for the Holt manufacturing company l has been showing by means of his lit tie giant Edison movie machine. He brought that little machine to The Re- publican office where on a piece of l cardboard two by three feet he threw 1 clear and steady moving pictures of the Holt factories of the machines in ac- 1 tiOn and several other films The pie lures were preliminary illustrations of | the Caterpillar; the tests at the Man istee ranch were concrete demonstra- tions.
 1 Davis drove his tractor to the Sands ] ranch some week past and started in i to blow several fields of the hardest 1 toughest dirt in the valley He had hunch that all of five blades of the Holt blow which he took with him could be used, but in the end he dis covered that the Holt would not do the work as well as it should and he pro- l cured a Rumley, with which he could cut two furroWs, 21 feet wide and a l quarter mile long in two hours.
 At the suggestion of Louis Sands for whom the demonstration was being made, other machines were invited in later in the week to compete with the Caterpillar They were the Rumley oil-pull, 30-15 h. p, and two Interna- tionals, one 2512 F h. p. and the other 4525 h. D. The contest re- suited in the elimination of the latter three machines, partially because of unadaptability to the work, but prin- cipally because it was found that they packed the earth much more tightly
 than did the Caterpillar. and that they would not work in so small a space as
 world the worm like little machine. The I three other machines left the ranch
 yesterday morning.
 When the R. A. R. happened along and saw the Caterpillar blowing the field he could not resist the temptation
 of having a peep at the workings of
 the machine and it's results Frederick 1 Johnson, foreman of the Manistee
 ranch was at the wheel making his
 second round of the field and already an expert at driving Two blades of
 the Rumley blow were cutting seven to
 nine inches clean in the hard and
 packed soil, and the little engine was plugging right ahead
 The Caterpillar is exactly what it's
 name implies. It is a low built crawl ing affair that squirms across the field at an enormous rate of speed for it's 1 size and weight and Johnson was hay | ing the time of his life driving it.
 It's the only thing in the world for
 me- said he as he wiped his greasy
 hands in his light hair. Let me show l you what it will do''
 He took the wheel and swung it. The 1 Caterpillar turned all the way around in 1 it's tracks. Then he started off down
 the field with his ploW The Caterpil-
 lar was again cutting it's several inches
 of clean furrows and cutting along at
 the same old speed And Johnson was
 smiling