Farm Power 



By L. W. Chase 



Professor of Agricultural Engineering, University of Nebraska 



In the Hilly and Mountainous States, 



water which can be used for power is 

 going to waste. In the prairie states, 

 wind which might be used as a power is 

 abundant, in fact, to those who visit the 

 regions only occasionally it is entirely too 

 plentiful. The water for power is being 

 w^asted because it is not in the proper 

 locality. It is confined to streams which 

 are so far from the homes where the 

 power should be utilized that only a few 

 are fortunate enough to use it. Wind 

 for power is scattered all over the prairies, but it is irregular in 

 its velocities and it takes such large quantities to develop only 

 a small amount of power that the cost of the plant is great. 

 Water and wind are the cheapest powers possible, but in 

 either case, the cost of a plant great enough to furnish power is 

 sufficiently large to make them prohibitive to the farmer. 

 Steam power can be used for everything on a farm, but the time 

 required to start the outfit and the care It needs when once 

 started prohibits its use on the farm for anything but very large 

 units, so the most feasible automatic power left for the farmers 

 is the internal combustion engine, the gasoline engine being the 

 most common type. 



If the first salesmen of gasoline engines had known as much 

 about their stock in trade when they introduced the new motor 

 power, and if the public to whom they were endeavoring to sell 

 their goods had known as much about them at that time as they 

 do now, gasoline engine manufacturing would not have received 

 such a cool reception as the general public gave it after only a 

 few engines had been tried. It is a failing of human nature 

 that wherever there is a wheel to turn, everybody must try to 

 turn it. Likewise everybody is desirous of having a motive 

 power to do his work which runs of its own accord and needs no 

 feeding, no currying, no harnessing, no cleaning, no firing, and 

 in short, practically no care. When the gasoline engine first 

 came into the market the dealers came out with just such extra- 

 vagant claims; they had just what everybody wanted, an engine 



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