FARM MANAGEMENT 99 



No more significant change is taking place in American agricul- 

 ture than the extent to which different kinds of motive power are 

 taking the place of men and animals. The use of the traction 

 engine and automobile in the place of the horse on the country 

 roads, the employment of gasoline, steam, wind, and electric power 

 to operate mowers, threshers, plows, feed cutters, corn huskers, and 

 dairy machinery are illustrations of epoch-making changes that are 

 now going on on every modern American farm. On one ranch in 

 California there is $60,000 worth of farm machinery operated by 

 some other power than animals or man. For want of proper infor- 

 mation these changes are involving farmers in serious mistakes and 

 large losses. They buy motors not suited to their requirements or 

 which they do not know how to operate. They buy machinery not 

 adapted to their condition and cause its rapid destruction by not 

 knowing how to care for it. 



There is made and sold each year in this country about $100,- 

 000,000 worth of farm machinery. Fully one-half of this goes into 

 the hands of men who do not know how to select it wisely or to keep 

 it in proper condition. The waste which results runs into millions 

 of dollars annually. In addition, implement manufacturers lose 

 large sums in making and attempting to introduce machinery un- 

 suited to the work it is intended to perform, with a resultant loss to 

 both farmers and manufacturers. 



These facts emphasize the importance of co-operation among 

 neighboring farmers in the purchase and ownership of farm ma- 

 chinery. Co-operation is the solution of the problem of the use of 

 the heavier and more expensive classes of machinery, especially such 

 as traction plows, combined reapers and threshers, and steam spray- 

 ing machines, and may be profitably extended to some of the other 

 classes. In sections where potatoes are the principal commercial 

 crop, joint ownership of planters, cultivators, and diggers would 

 prove economical. In all cases of community or co-operative own- 

 ership the use of the machines would be under the management of 

 persons of mechanical skill and thus the successful operation and 

 proper care of the machine secured. In many cities small manufac- 

 turing establishments combine together for the purchase and opera- 

 tion of a central power plant, effecting large savings in fuel, in 

 wages of engineers and firemen and in the deterioration of a number 

 of boilers and engines. Printing establishments combine in the 

 ownership and management of presses and typesetting machines, and 

 find such combinations economical and expeditious. Similar results 

 would follow combinations among farmers. One traction plow 

 would easily do all the plowing for an extended neighborhood, and 

 traction reapers and mowers would as successfully do the harvesting. 

 One steam sprayer would do all the spraying for orchards and forest 

 trees for a large number of owners, and do it better. The operator 

 would possess a knowledge of the proper mixture to use and the 

 methods of application. One man skilled in the use of the ordinary 

 gang plow will do more and better work than two unskilled men. 

 One first class corn shredder, operated by men who understand the 



