Motorizing the Farm 



Another vital element in increasing the output of 

 food and raw materials is the motorizing or mech- 

 anizing of the farm. This is perhaps the most far- 

 reaching change now taking place in farming. 



The tractor is of fundamental importance in the 

 motorizing of the farm. Plowing requires more power 

 than any other one job on the average farm. On a 

 farm for which the tractor is adapted the plowing can 

 be done better with a tractor and in much shorter 

 time. The man who plows with horses starts 'out 

 doing a good piece of work in the morning. As the 

 day wears on he gradually lifts the plow to save the 

 horses, and by afternoon is doing less efficient work. 

 But he who plows with the tractor can plow at exactly 

 the depth best suited to the soil throughout the entire 

 day, for the tractor will plow all day, and all night, 

 too, without getting tired. Further, with the tractor 

 he can plow in a single day nearly as much as he could 

 in a week with two or three horses. He can therefore 

 plow his ground quickly and when it is in the best 

 condition for plowing. 



Conservation of food makes it desirable that the 

 tractor should replace part of the horses on American 

 farms, for it is estimated that each horse or mule con- 

 sumes about one-fourth of what it produces. The 

 number of horses on the farms continued to increase 

 up to 1910 at about the same rate as the acreage of 

 improved land. See Chart 11. Contrary to the com- 

 mon impression, the number did not decrease ma- 

 terially after the outbreak of the war, but in 1917 the 

 number of horses and mules on American farms stood 

 at the highest point in our history, exceeding twenty- 

 five million. With rising prices it is more advantage- 

 ous to feed an engine with gasoline or even alcohol 



[33] 



