Farms of the Future 



steam plough, the engine is not heard. It is more 

 cumbrous and expensive even than the horse! 

 Internal combustion is another matter; already 

 the oil engine is doing our yard work — chaff-cutting 

 and corn grinding, and its still lighter and more 

 adaptable brother the petrol (or paraffin) motor 

 will clear the horse from his last refuge, the soil. 

 This process has commenced, the mechanical 

 farm horse is already at work, and we only want 

 the Yankee to take it up, make it light, handy, 

 and cheap, turn it out by swarms, and the trick 

 is done. 



But we shall not cease there — we are only 

 now glancing a generation ahead, and the adop- 

 tion of mechanical power for agriculture on the 

 lines laid out will prepare the way for the coming 

 of electricity. This is the farm agent of the 

 future which will oust all competitors, and in a 

 century or so, reign supreme. Perhaps sooner 

 than we dream, for it only requires a practical 

 method of harnessing a wind-wheel to a dynamo, 

 and the campaign will begin. Picture the 

 farm of the twenty-first century — its telephone, 

 power trolleys, vans, and drays, its stables dried, 

 brilliantly alight, and turned into workshops and 

 garage, its electrical machines for yard purposes, 

 its elevators and stack hoists, and finally its fields 

 surrounded by the magic wire. There will be 



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