232 



THE IERIGATION AGE. 



1903 he was elected to be the head of the farm mechan- 

 ics department that had just been organized at the 

 Iowa State College at Ames. A new farm mechanics 

 building, costing, with the equipment, $70,000, was 

 erected, and it devolved upon Professor Zintheo to out- 

 line and organize the new courses of teaching farm me- 

 chanics. There were no precedents to follow and no 

 sources of information for the various subjects to be 

 taught in the course, and a great deal of work had to 

 be done to organize the courses. The farm mechanics 

 department at the Iowa State College is now giving 

 very comprehensive courses in field enginering, such as 

 farm drainage and road construction; farm machinery, 

 consisting of a study of farm implements and farm mo- 

 tors; also farm implement design and farm architec- 

 ture. 



Among the lines of experiments which the depart- 

 ment will take up will be experiments with farm motors 

 to determine the cheapest motive power for farm pur- 

 poses. Tests will be ma-de with the new gas producer 

 gas engines to determine how cheaply power may be 

 produced from lignite coal in the extensive lignite fields 

 of North Dakota, and thus obtain a substitute for the 

 expensive gasoline. 



Experiments will also be conducted with "denatur- 

 ized" alcohol produced from potatoes and waste prod- 

 ucts of the Western farms to be used as a fuel for farm 

 motors in Colorado and elsewhere. 



Cement and concrete for farm building purposes 

 will be experimented with to determine their efficiency 

 and cost as compared with lumber, which is constantly 

 increasing in price. 



A bulletin on corn harvesting machinery will be 

 issued in the near future. 



It will be seen that a very extensive field of inves- 

 tigation and information will be established and a great 

 deal of benefit will be derived both by the implement 

 manufacturers and by the farmers. 



A half-tone photograph of Professor Zintheo is 

 shown herewith. 



"LUTE" WILCOX. 



Polly Pry, a well-known magazine of Denver, has 

 the following to say about our friend, Lucius M. Wilcox, 

 editor and proprietor of the Field and Farm: 



Somewhere between forty and fifty years ago, more 

 or less, there or thereabouts, one Lucius M. Wilcox 

 made his advent upon this vale of tears. Early in life 

 he was called "Lute," and as he never lost his boy-heart 

 he never lost his boy-name, and everybody either knows 

 "Lute" Wilcox or knows of him. 



A few years ago he established Field and Farm, a 

 journal devoted to farming in this region, once known 

 as "the Great American Desert." He wrote all the 

 farmers he could learn of postal cards of the return 

 variety and asked them if they were subscribers for the 

 paper and wound up with the pertinent question: "If 

 you are not a subscriber, why don't you subscribe?" 

 Then he asked if they had any suggestions to make, and 

 as anybody can tell an editor how to run a paper hun- 

 dreds of thousands of ranchers subscribed for the pleas- 

 ure of giving him good advice. 



He must have carefully avoided taking it, for he 

 has made a tremendous success of his paper, built it up 

 until it has a splendid circulation, and made it the 



most quoted agricultural paper in the West; in fact, it 

 is The only agricultural paper in the West that any- 

 body hears of right straight along. "Lute" is making 

 money, and everybody is glad of it, whether they know 

 him or not. If they know him personally it is almost 

 as if good fortune had overtaken one of the family. 

 If they know him by hearsay they are glad of any pleas- 

 ant thing that comes his way, because he has done 

 much to build up this State and because a few years 

 ago he had lost his sight. 



Ordinarily it is not good manners to speak of any 

 personal affliction, but sometimes there comes with 

 such a loss a spiritual gain, such a growth of the finer 

 attributes of the mind and soul that the loss may bf 

 accounted gain. 



"Lute" didn't give up or moan and bewail his lot. 

 He thanked God for the bravest, truest wife a man 

 could hope for, gave the general supervision of things 

 into her strong and capable hands, and began to adjust 

 himself to the new, untried life he must lead in a con- 

 tinual valley of shadow. 



You will find the best literature of the day and of 

 other days on Lute's table; the May Century and the 

 Autocrat elbow each other. The newest novel, the last 



LUIUS M. WILCOX 

 Editor Field and Farm, Denver, Colo. 



scientific treatise, the agricultural papers and the Gov- 

 ernment irrigation reports all have a place in his scheme 

 of existence. It would be hard to find a better posted 

 man or a better read man than he. Not only that, but 

 it is as if, having lost the outward sight, he had gained 

 inner light that clears up the dark and puzzling points 

 and renders luminous the most obscure and difficult 

 problems. He really thinks; most of us only think we 

 think. 



He is a man worth cultivating, worth making 

 much of ; we do not find his brave, cheerful spirit every 

 day. Whenever I think of him I think of these lines, 

 which somehow seem to suggest his experience : 



"I could not see till I was blind, 



Then color, music, light, 

 Came floating down on every wind, 

 And noonday was at night. 



"I could not feel till I was dead, 



Then through the mold and wet 

 A rose breathed softly overhead ; 

 I heard a violet." 



