Missouri Home Makers' Conference. 591 



every day. Sometimes the dairy cows are milked and the 

 cream separated from the milk by electricity; the dairy is ven- 

 tilated, lighted, heated or cooled, all by electric power. Poultry 

 farmers are finding that this power can be used to furnish heat 

 for the incubator and the brooder. 



Electricity on the farm is a subject commanding much 

 attention. Manufacturers are studying the farmer's wants, 

 and are making machinery to supply those wants. The National 

 Government is investigating, the State colleges and experiment 

 stations are helping the movement with information and advice. 

 The possibilities are beyond count. The successful advent of 

 the electric automobiles suggests the possible use of electric 

 power in plowing, seeding, cultivating and harvesting. Electric 

 farm trucks are made in America, and the general utilization 

 of electric power in agriculture depends upon a better under- 

 standing between the producer and the consumer as to the field 

 of probable use. The consumer does not realize how much 

 time, money and patience can be saved by the application of 

 the new agent. Electricity is no longer a luxury, but is rapidly 

 becoming a necessity to the farmer and the farmer's wife. The 

 yearbook of the Department of Agriculture calls attention to 

 an awakening of the farmer, to the necessity of a machine-made 

 farm. In certain parts of the country such an awakening seems 

 to be already well advanced, and the steam engine, electric 

 motor, gasoline engine, and particularly the oil-burning en- 

 gines, are doing the work of opening up innumerable acres for 

 cultivation. Not since Watt's time has such a vast improve- 

 ment in engines been made. The oil-burning engine consumes 

 crude oil costing only a few cents a gallon, or any liquid fuel, 

 and^ like all great inventions, it is astonishingly simple. And it 

 seems reasonable to predict that this simple and inexpensive 

 engine will work as great a revolution in American agriculture 

 as was worked by the automatic harvester. With horses, every 

 plow needs a man, but with an oil engine two men can operate 

 eighteen plows and hold control in their hands the power of 

 eighty horses that never tire. Agriculture now as in the past 

 is still the most important occupation, for it is here that the food 

 that feeds and the raiment that clothes the world finds its first 

 production. And any invention that lightens the load of the man 

 who toils and enables him to reap a greater profit from his 

 labors is of great benefit to humanity. But any movement 

 for the lightening of the farmer's work must, if it meets with 



