Arizona republican., 1918-07-07
TRACTOR ECONOMY By Finest G. Coan, Advertising
 Manager Pratt Gilbert Go.

A passenger locomotive with its high speed with comparatively light load for passenger traffic. has been established; the slower travelling freight locomotive has proven to be an economical system for hauling heavy loads; while the tractor for do- ing heavy field work must be classed as the slower moving. heavy pulling, field locomotive. It is more practical to pull implements at the usual speed -the speed at which they are intended to work. Tractor economy means the same as locomotive economy and men tion is made of this to bring out the fallacy of the argument made by some small tractor manufacturers who claim that because they can blow at the rate 1 of four or more miles per hour they are doing as much work as the more regular machine travelling at the eS- tablished speed.
 No tractor can succeed which em- ploys the high speed, light weight, au- tomobile type of motor. Almost a hum dred different concerns have failed since 1910 in making the attempt.
 Kerosene or distillate are the prac- tical and patriotic fuels to burn in farm tractors. Kerosene must first be turned into gas. A lot of these high speed, vertical, automobile type of motors may have some sort of heater that will enable them to run a few hours on kerosene, but when the crank case fills up and the lubricating oil be- comes diluted they melt out the con meeting rod and main bearings and | the manufacturer, under such condi- tions, invariably calls the farmers at tention to the fact that he doesn't know how to operate the machine. or some other excuse. never admitting for a minute that it is faulty con- struction. The farmer is simply stuck and sometimes this is done under the claim of patriotism.
 The circus type of tractor comes and goes. Like the farmer who said as long as the agent ran the tractor it looked alright to him but after he got to running it he found a lot of things about it that were next to impossible. It is well to look out for the fellow that runs tractor rip and tear across the field and then stops to explain how it is made, for sufficient time to allow it to cool off
 Tractors on the market today have reached a high state of development after years of testing and experience. No farmer should indulge in the hope that a miracle tractor practically un- tried with no tractor ancestry, with no gradual experimental knowledge, can emerge from somewhere and cast all of those of today on the scrap heap.
 That a tractor without any record of performance, no thorough going test to try out it's value for the manifold
 tasks that a farm tractor must per
 form to be worth even a moderate price, is a good investment
 A recent editorial in the Country
 Gentleman says: When we find our
 selves disillusioned and at the samt time stung in the pocketbook, fact: stab hard. A multitude of farmers arc
 in line for vain and poignant regrets
 unless they shake themselves free from , such rhapsodies as miracles and ulti- mate tractors descending from thu . heavens, like mama. There are a To . of excellent tractors on the market right now. and year by year there will b. further improvements in design ant
 material. But there will be no miracl
 tractors, no superfection tractors {, thrust suddenly upon us. The farme who shops cautiously for his tractor
 investigates many makes, looks u u their performance records with pains n taking diligence, and discards futil 1 the idea that there is or can be mir a acle tractor is taking out the highes '. possible insurance for a successful y purchase"