702 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Very often much time may be saved by having an automobile. For 

 instance: Its haying time, everybody is in a hurry. The mower is 

 broken. It may be 8 or 10 miles to town for repairs. The farm team if 

 taken from the field could scarcely make tbe trip in half a day. Right 

 here is where the auto is a great saving. The "gude wife" can lay aside 

 her breakfast work for an hour and enjoy an hour's ride and be greatly 

 rested for the rest of the day's work that is before her. They are in 

 town by seven. Repairs are bought, home by eight. Soon you are in 

 the field and cutting hay by the time the dew is off. This is what I call 

 business with a lot of pleasure attached. 



Generally in the long summer days the chores are finished an hour be- 

 fore dark. This is the time for the boys and girls to go for a ride. May- 

 be to town on some errand, sometimes to a neighbors, many times no 

 stops are made at all. Such rides as these are the ones that bring sweet 

 sleep and pleasant dreams to the farmers' family. 



Our eastern friends are much concerned over the extravagance of the 

 western farmer. They say automobiles cost so much to begin with, that 

 their keep up is costly, that they are used almost altogether for pleasure 

 and that they are afraid it will make money scarce and liable to create 

 a financial panic. I believe that more than two-thirds of the farmers that 

 buy automobiles have the money to pay for them. Of course there are 

 some men who buy and pay for them because they have to, who are very 

 slow about paying their grocery and butcher's bills. As a rule the farmer 

 that buys a machine is able to keep one in repairs so that every time a 

 tire pops it don't give him palpitation of the heart. I think if the "high 

 financiers" would give more concern about the money spent for intoxi- 

 cating liquors they would be doing more good. $2,500,000,000 a year 

 are spent for liquor. What if $500,000,000 are spent for automobiles. A 

 few men may be killed, a great number of horses frightened, a few wagons 

 and carriages be broken up. The automobile at the worst does not wreck 

 homes, leave children fatherless nor fill our jails with criminals and pile 

 up our court expenses in punishing the guilty. Had not our farmers 

 better spend their money for automobiles than throw it away in the sa- 

 loons? 



The farmers investment in an automobile may not always be wise and 

 again it may be the highest wisdom. If he is able why not have his 

 own private car and proclaim himself among the financial aristocracy of 

 the land. He doesn't complain if the millionaire owns his private yacht or 

 private car on the railroad stocked with liquors and other luxuries or 

 when he loads his wife and daughter with costly jewelry. All of this 

 does not seem to worry the eastern financiers. I consider it none of the 

 capitalists business as long as the farmer pays for his car so that his fam- 

 ily may enjoy the cooling breezes on a hot summer evening. It is the 

 citizen of the city who is working on a salary little larger than living 

 expenses who needs look out. We farmers do not buy automobiles for 

 pleasure alone, which is all our city people can get out of a machine. 



We can haul our cream, butter and eggs to town. Detach the rear seat 

 and take a few sacks of wheat or a plow to be sharpened. Bring back a 



