The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1921-02-04

with gang plow with four>14- inch
bottom plows drawn by 1880 trac-
tor, an average of 10 acres.
Until few years ago the common
method of harvesting corn was to
husk it by hand. One man with a
team and wagon drove through field.
The man walked behind the wagon
and pulled the corn and husked 1t
from two rows as he went, throwing
the ears into the wagon.
Now, especially in large fields, the
work is done by the corn pickers.
This machine is generally pulled by
five horses or a small tractor and
husks the corn and puts 1t In the
wagon as fast as the team can walk.
From five to seven acres day can
be husked in this way
With corn binder three men and
two teams can cut and shock from
five to seven acres of corn fodder In
day. BY the hand method it was a
good days work for man to cut and
shock one acre. y
With a one horse walking cultiva-
tor, two or three acres was a days
work for one man; twenty five or
thirty acres Is now possible. Where a
man could NOW only about one acre
of hay day he can now NOW fifteen
or sixteen acres.
An emergency such as faced the
American farmers during the world
war-such an emergency as faces as
even today-would have meant failure
twenty years ago. Yet not only did
we have sufficient food for all of US,
but for over three years we fed 81
000. 900 of our Allies, a number equal
to so per cent Of the total population
of the United States.
During those years, according to
the food administrator, we sent to
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Rus
STA 384,000.000 bushels of wheat and
-four, 444,000, 900 pounds Of beef, g.
000,000,000 pounds of pork and 3d.
100000 pounds of butter.
The tractors on the farms replaced
1900, 900 horses and mules and 250,-
900 farm boys who were in military
service.
With a tractor a farmer can raise
larger crops be cause he plows deep
er, makes a better seed bed, and cul
tivates and tills the soil more and
better after the crop has been
planted. He can double his output.
He can farm more than twice, as
much land and do it better, with less
labor and at less expense. Not only can
he make more crops grow on the
crops on more than twice the area.
One man and tractor can do the
work that required so men in the
time of Napoleon.
( In Kansas, in the fall Of 1917, al
though $4,000 men, mostly farmers,
were in the military service $780,
900 acres were seeded to wheat and
in the following spring more. than
"a 100000 acres were. sown to crops,
so that approximately $4,000 900
acres of crops were harvested in 1918,
as compared with about 100000 900
acres in 1909. ~
Generally 10000 or more transient
laborers went into Kansas each year
to help with the harvest, but in 1918
the enormous acreage was handled
with tractors. In two years time the
number of tractors in use on the
farms IF Kansas increased loo per
and what is true of Kansas is
LARGELY true of many other states.
Under the pressure of war times
many farmers who were operating
from 100 to 100 acres, learned to cul-
tivate, with tractors, from 400 to 800
acres, and despite the scarcity .of
farm labor, Shave continued to farm
ment that would be impossible with
out tractors and other modern ma
chimes.
No only are modern machines TAX
ing the place of thousands who have
left the farms, but they are keeping
many thousands of others on the
farms, by eliminating much of the
drudgery both in the field and in the
home.
The shortage of farm labor and
the substituting of farm machinery
will RESULTS resulting-in modern
izing the farm.