Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1918-04-25

filed with earth and the new-made fields presents
finely mulched even surface.
The tank is not only first in 1t is first in
peace. For it's weight it has more pulling power
than any farm machine made 1t is the biggest
money saver and time saver ever introduced for
power purposes upon the farm. The division OF
agricultural engineering of the University of Cali
fornia has found that one man with a As horse
power tractor on the university farm can do the
work of from three to six men with mules. More
over, the same machine may be kept going day
and night, great advantage in California where
1t is necessary to get large amount Of work done
in short time. And it requires no feed or care
when not working.
For varied Illustration Of what track layer
can do take the case Of the L-54, husky little
45 horsepower tractor which has been out Of the
shop for eighteen months. The writer watched
her working and learned of her career since the
day she left the factory. III
She was hauling beets when I first saw her
Under the thrust of her powerful engines she
went forward in cloud of dust that hid her from
all eyes but her drivers She mounted the sides
OF the levee, dragging her own weight Of five and
one-half tons and two eleven-ton truckloads Of
beets easily If there had been no load at ALL
The ground on the island is what ranchers in
the delta Of the San Joaquin river call peat bot
tom fluff 1t gave under like saw logs in mill
boom as the little L,54 dragged her weight over
it, hugging the ground as closely as a badger
When she had reached the top L-54 stopped mo-
ment and the driver got his bearings. Then the
gears connected with her right track, her left
track remaining stationary, and she swung around
from right to left on her axis quite as rap
idly as lady in the fox trot.
This however. was nothing for the L-54 She
go backward or forward, up hill or down. and
can spin around all day like dervish If her driver
throws in but one CLUTCH Time and again she has
picked her way over the peat boys of the newly
reclaimed land, skrted the edge Of big cracks
six eight feet deep, backed and sidestepped
and bridged miniature chasms confident that
nothing short of cavern Of the whole earth could
stop her progress and that the harrows, plows or
trucks behind were bound to follow wherever she
led.
L-54 is pOnderous, deliberate creature with
tremendous grip upon the earth. If covered with
sheet iron and arnored she could tear her way
through wire entanglements as easily as Byngs
tanks tore through the German defenses at Cam
brai. But more than all things else she is q
money saver and man saver.
This is all in the days work with LISA, and
nights work, too. In fact her driver can remem-
Der when she worked all day and then went at
1t at night with acetylene lamp, blowing up
beets with subsoil pillow 10 inches Deep She
has been on the job in one way or another all the
time for IS months.
She had pulled grader holding five cubic
yards of dirt to level the land for irrigation be-
fore single had been put into beets. She
had been lent to farmer in the nearby foothills
He had hitched her up to chisel-shaped sub
soier that would break the hardest ground in the
district and she had SUBSIDIZED the land to depth
of 20 inches, breaking up the hard-pow par
where ten span of horses had failed. For the frs
time in % years that land had produced 30 bush
els Of wheat to the acre.
When the Lisa mounted the levee with her two