JULY 15. 1915 



599 



A. I. Root 



OUE MOME 



Editor 



And God said, Let us make man in our image, 

 lifter our likenesis; and let them have dominion over 

 Ihc (isli of the scii, and over the fowl of the air, jind 

 over the cattle, and over all the earth, :uid over 

 every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

 -Qkn. 1:26. 



In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread till 

 thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou 

 taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou 

 return. — Gen. 3:19. 



All things work together for good to them that 

 love God. — Romans; 8:28. 



A year ago or more somebody asked 

 through Gleanings whether inventors had 

 yet produced a gasoline motor that would 

 run a cultivator in place of a horse; and 

 after we had spoken of the advantages of 

 such an invention Dr. Miller reminded us 

 that we had not said anything about the 

 horse stepping on our plants, especially 

 wlien he turns around, etc. 



There is another thing I have been think- 

 ing of. At just the right time after a rain 

 the gi-ound will cultivate beautifully with a 

 light cultivator, when it is too soft for a big 

 heavy horse to tramp through the rows. 

 Of course, people often cultivate when it is 

 ton wet ; but the tramping of the horse does 

 much injury in compacting the soil unless 

 it is very dry. By the way, this present 

 season we have had gentle summer showers 

 so frequently — at least in our locality— that 

 I have as yet, July 10, had no use for our 

 irrigating system. Well, as our garden is 

 small, and I have strawberries, asparagnas, 

 pie-plant, and other stuff where we cannot 

 plow, and where it is quite inconvenient for 

 a horse to turn around without doing dam- 

 age, I decided not to have a horse in the 

 garden at all this season. So I procured one 

 of the latest easy-running hand cultivators. 

 It did the work hnely, but it was pretty hard 

 work unless 1 cultivated a few rows and 

 then did something else to rest. Of course 

 1 could have called on one of the big stout 

 men from the lumber-yard; but of late Mrs. 

 Root and I both have been planning to get 

 along by ourselves as much as possible 

 without calling on outside help. Several 

 limes when I was too tired to run my culti- 

 vator any longer (at just the right time 

 after a shower to have our heavy clay soil 

 work to the best advantage) I was wonder- 

 ing if I could not have either electricity or 

 gasoline to reinforce my strength. As Er- 

 nest and Huber are both tolerable experts, 

 and pretty well posted in regard to motor 

 electricity and gasoline motors, I interview- 

 ed them on the matter. I wanted something 

 to furnish power, and something that was 

 light, and which I could easily handle. Hu- 



ber said there was no motor made that he 

 knew of that weighed less than 50 lbs., for 

 gasoline; and 50 lbs. added to my hand 

 cultivator would make it unwieldy in turn- 

 ing around at the ends of the rows, and 

 hard work to handle. He said an electric 

 motor would do it nicely. I had in mind 

 something for old people and boys. A boy 

 could often do a strong man's work if he 

 had the strength. Our readers are aware, 

 of course, that in the great wheat-fields they 

 have a little motor attached to the harvester. 

 It supplements the work of the team. The 

 team pulls the machine along, and a little 

 gasoline-engine furnishes the power to cut 

 the gi'ain. The difficulty with electricity for 

 a motor, however, is that you have got to 

 have a storage battery or a trolley wire. 

 The storage batteries (even Edison's latest) 

 would be too heavy, besides the expense. A 

 very light wire would furnish all the power 

 needed, but we would have to go to the 

 expense of running wires overhead, and, all 

 together, the apparatus would be too com- 

 plicated. 



While we are considering this matter it 

 may be proper to mention that the Ford 

 people are now making something to take 

 the place of a horse. I do not know wheth- 

 er it will pull a cultivator or not; but I have 

 seen an announcement that Ford expects to 

 have 30,000 of them on the market in Sep- 

 tember. I presume, of course, it would be 

 too heavy and expensive for what I have 

 in mind. With what I have been saying 

 befoi'e you, let me submit a clipping from 

 an excellent article in the National Stock- 

 man and Farmer, by our good friend W. I. 

 Chamberlain : 



It is next to folly to ask incessantly, as the non- 

 thinkers do: "How can we keep the boys on the 

 farm?" We don't want to keep them all on the 

 farm. With present machinery, T repeat again, two 

 hoys growing to be men can do the work once done 

 by ten. The other eight should and will go to the 

 cities, the great centers of manufacture, commerce, 

 and transportation. Four things the cities must have 

 from the country or they will die: Pure air wafted 

 in; pure water piped in; pure food brought in on 

 wheels, and pure, fresh human blood drawn in by 

 a legitimate and irresistible attraction. These vast 

 results of science, invention, and the increased use 

 of nature's forces are, I again insist, on the whole 

 beneficent and only incidentally and locally disas- 

 trous. And they are irresistible. " You might as 

 well try to dam tlie waters of the Nile with bul- 

 rushes " as to dam this rising tide of vast benefi 

 cence, or damn the thinkers, scientists or inventors 

 who cause that rising tide 



After reading the above I said amen to it, 

 and then added, " Let all unite in making 

 our towns and cities safer places for the 

 boys who leave the farm to go out in the 



