,xTT'S the first cost, not the up- 

 ••J[ keep." 



This comment uttered by a 

 keen-minded, bright-eyed wife of a 

 Cook county truck gardener who prac- 

 tices intensive cultivation on a nine 

 acre tract near Summit, sums up a lot 

 of argument pro and con on the sub- 

 ject of rural electrification. 



When you talk about extending elec- 

 tricity to the farm in Illinois, or any- 

 where else, your foremost problem is 

 not the monthly cost of current, nor 

 even ■financing the extension line, al- 

 though these are important. 



You immediately run into the prob- 

 lem of the uses to be made of elec- 

 tricity, the cost of wiring the house, 

 and the cosOof major appliances. 



The electrical industry needs a genius, 

 a Henry Ford, perhaps, who can put 

 out refrigerators, milk coolers, water 

 heaters, electric ranges, etc. that are 

 durable and practical but inexpensive, 

 to meet the demand and pocketbook of 

 the farm family. 



Have Same Problem 



The utility companies, no less than 

 farmers, are up against the same prob- 

 lem. The companies' revenue comes 

 largely from the sale of current. They 

 want to build up the farm "load"' and 

 that means kilowatt hours per farm 

 per month. Where farmers organize 

 electrification co-operatives their in- 

 terests are the same. But experience 

 has shown that the great majority of 

 farm families, in fact all users of elec- 

 tricity, are confining their use largely 

 to lighting and the smaller, cheaper 

 household appliances. When' farmers 

 buy, they run squarely into a stone 

 wall of controlled production and fixed 

 prices. "This is our price, take it or 

 leave it," say the manufacturers of 



Electric lights with reflectors add a couple o( 

 hours to Biddy's eating and scratching day and 

 incidentally frll the egg basket faster. 



electrical goods. And the-would-be 

 customer in too many cases is forced 

 to "leave it." 



But there are signs of progress, in 

 fact very substantial progress has been 

 made during the past few years, first 

 in putting some extra dollars into the 

 farm purse, and secondly in reducing 

 the cost of electric current and equip- 

 ment. These are the reasons why the 

 use of electric power reached an all- 

 time peak last year, and why more 

 and more farmers are electrifying their 

 farms. 



What are some of the uses farmers 

 are making of electricity? Henry 



Bringing. £ 

 To the F 



r 



Mrs. Ross and Her Two "Little" Boys 



"Experience Is A Good Teacher" 



Scholten, Cook county truck grower is 

 irrigating his vegetable beds with a 5 

 HP motor and pump that delivers 7500 

 gallons of water per hour from the old 

 Illinois-Michigan canal. The 1934 

 drouth influenced him to build an'llOO 

 ft. "home-made" electric line exten- 

 sion across his farm which adjoins the 

 canal. The posts came from old box 

 cars and the cables he strung himself, 

 all at a cost of $100 which compares 

 with a bid of $300 from a contractor. 

 So this year if the rain doesn't come 

 when the spinach, tomatoes, lettuce, 

 and other crops need water, hell turn 

 the switch, start the pump, and trans- 

 fer Illinois-Michigan canal water from 

 its present useless state into life-giving 

 moistuj-e for his truck crops. 



He Had Spinach 



When the 1934 drouth was at its 

 worst, Henry Bulthuis, another Cook 

 county trucker, had a thriving crop of 

 spinach when his neighbors had none 

 because his electric pump delivering 

 85 gallons of water a minute out of 

 Salt Creek at a cost of 2c a kwh flooded 

 his spinach beds. His average use of 

 electricity during the drouth period 

 ran about 900 kwh per month. While 

 Northern Illinois averages about 3" of 

 rainfall a month, the rain isn't always 

 evenly distributed through the year 

 so that truck farmers in the Chicago 

 area who have an ample supply of 

 water are thinking more and more of 

 the possibilities in improving yields 

 and quality of their truck crops by 

 irrigation. Richard Boonstra, agricul- 

 tural engineer for the Public Service 

 Company of Northern Illinois is en- 

 thusiastic about the opportunities for 

 improving the income of the truck 

 ■grower by flood type irrigation. And 

 looking at the problem from the point 

 of view of a practical farmer, he is 

 working in this territory to develop 

 profitable uses for electricity on the 



This Article May Answer Some <) lestion 

 Timely Subject. If You Want El^|pjpjj„ 

 sonable Basis Write Us For Help, j£ Yoi 

 the Use of Electricity on the Fal,, ^^^^ 

 TeU Us About It.— Editor. 



I. A. A. RECORD 



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