GLEANINGS IN B?:E CULTURE 



THE HOME - BUILT TRACTOR 

 It may Often be More Efficient than the General-purpose Tractor 



BY XENO W. PUTNAM 



The gasoline-engine is llie wonderful 

 chore-hoy of the modern ajiiary, farm, and 

 household, wherever power is needed in 

 such small quantities or at such irregular 

 and brief intervals of time that steam pow- 

 er would be out of the question, and in 

 places where electricity is not as yet avail- 

 able. It is a specially useful chore-boy in 

 the performance of those tasks wherein the 

 source of power must frequently shift from 

 ))lace to place, peihaps doing' some of its 

 work while in the act of shifting. 



For the latter purpose it is none the less 

 a legless chore-boy whose usefulness is se- 

 riously impaired by its crippled condition. 

 Faithful and powerful as it is when set up 

 and belted to its tasks, in the interval of 

 being conveyed from one to another it be- 

 comes a helplass mass of iron that must be 

 wheeled or hauled or carried about by some 

 other source of power, all because even the 

 least of the excellent small power tractors 

 now upon the market are still too heavy, 

 cumbersome, and expensive to be useful in 

 any but the largest apiaries. 



In a good many cases the apiarist feels 

 that he is unable to afford more than a 

 single .source of power. The gasoline-en- 

 gine seems perfectly adapted to his varied 

 and intermittent tasks of running a rip- 

 saw, a buzz-saw, planer, lathe, separator, 

 pump, or any of those innumerable tasks 

 which are too quickly over for the employ- 

 ment of steam and too back-breaking to be 

 comfortably done with human muscle. For 

 such work, horses are not very available ex- 

 cepting through tread power. Still, horses 

 are usually required to move even the small 

 power gasoline-engine from place to place 

 occasionally unless we are willing to tote 

 all of the \arieties of Avork by hand or by 

 horse power to the engine. Not everj- api- 

 arist feels able to keep both a team and an 

 engine. There is ahvays more or less dan- 

 ger of accident, too, in the working of even 

 tlie steadiest of horses among the gentlest 

 of bees. The ]!Ower that the apiarist really 

 needs is something that, like the gasoline- 

 engine, can be made to develop from one to 

 three or four hoi'se i')Ower at the belt with- 

 out any preliminaries in getting up steam; 

 a power that is ready for the work when- 

 ever the work is ready; something that does 

 not cost much more than a siugie horse — 

 certainly not more than a team; that can 

 be divei'led in a moment from belt to di-aw- 

 bar usefulness; something that may be tak- 



en right among the bees if necessary, and 

 left to stand any place by the hour without 

 any fear of stings or danger of runaways. 



It has been recently announced that a 

 new gasoline-tractor is soon to be put i;pon 

 tiie market at a cost of about $200. This, 

 when it comes, Avill be a godsend to the big 

 apiarist and small farmer. The man with 

 a hundred or so colonies, a big garden, and 

 n few ao'es of general farm ground, will 

 si ill in most cases feel compelled to get 

 along piecing out the work of his less ex- 

 peiLsive little stationary engine by the sweat 

 of his broAv. Then there are men who al- 

 ready own a gasoline-engine that is all they 

 can ask at the belt — men who cannot afford 

 two engines, and who do not care to give u]) 

 the one they have. For all of these men the 

 home-made gasoline-tractor, which can be 

 made at little cost, and out of almost any 

 engine, fills the bill as nothing else can do. 

 All the more is this true because the home- 

 built tractor may be so constructed that it 

 will be specially adapted in every way to 

 apiary work. Ilom.e-m.ade tractors are not 

 intended as rivals of the factory-built ma- 

 chines; still, they may often be made to 

 serve out some special mi&sion far better 

 than the general-purpose tractor. They 

 also have the adA-antage of being available 

 in many apiaries and small farms where 

 even the cheapest of tractors could ne\?er be 

 afforded. 



In pi-eparing the manuscript of a book' 

 upon this subject it Avas recently necessary 

 for the Avriter to communicate personally 

 Avith more than one hundred home-tractor 

 builders, not any Iavo of whose rigs were 

 exactly alike. In fact, the very range and 

 variety Avas one of the best proofs that the 

 specially constructed tractor' can be made 

 that will fit into almost any niche the build- 

 er Avills. In range of poAver the engines in 

 tliese rigs run from one-horse to forty, and 

 in cost from one dollar (outside of the en- 

 gine and iiersonal Avork, of course) fo 

 $1260, the latter being designed for special 

 work for Avhich no tractor upon the market 

 served the purpose of the OAvner so Avell. 

 Practically every style of engine was util- 

 ized — air-cooled, Avater-cooled, vertical, hor- 

 izontal, tAvo-cylinder opposed, twin cylin- 

 der, single cylinder, and multi-cyliiuler. In 

 one instance an auto engine Avas liflod out 

 of a light auto buggy, and, at an expense of 

 less than $"). mounted in a big harA-esting- 

 )nachine and made to cut 800 acres of wheat 



