6 POWER AND THE PLOW 



cylinder vertical, and over there a two-cylinder horizontal. 

 This engine cools its cylinder with water, and that with oil. 

 This one has a hit-and-miss governor, while that one throttles 

 its charge. Here is an owner ready at the last moment to risk 

 the race on some new notion. A new cleat or a new cork in- 

 sert in the friction clutch fails at the critical time and a good 

 machine is discredited. The student of design saves here ten 

 thousand miles of travel, and sees construction put to its most 

 strenuous test in yielding data of incomparable value. 



Each hour the steamers must take water, but time is too 

 precious to allow a stop. The tank wagon keeps pace alongside, 

 and a hose-crane and steam jet do the rest. Once in two hours 

 the coal supply must be replenished, but the engineer finds 

 sacked fuel and a dozen helping hands to avoid delay. The 

 bare prairie affords no natural watering place. The alkali 

 water from a distant farm well is not only insufficient, but bad 

 for both man and machine. The railway falters in its task of 

 bringing water in tank cars from the city, and early in the day 

 six steamers must stop plowing while gas engines on all sides 

 go popping merrily on. When water comes at last, two ver- 

 satile gas tractors fall to and assist the weary teams in keeping 

 their steam cousins in motion. 



The foremost experts on the continent are in charge of rival 

 plows. Here is a game within a game, Yankee plowmaker 

 against Yankee, and Canadian against both. The craftiest 

 general of them all adjusts his plows to show a sharp furrow 

 handsome on top, regardless of what lies underneath, and so 

 wins popular favor for the engine which tows him. Had the 

 plowmaker not provided these superb implements, products 

 of the last decade, a contest on such scale would be impossible. 

 The cattle wandering over their former pasture field would still 

 have found rich pickings, and the memory of smooth mile-long 

 furrows would not have lingered with many a farmer to create 

 in his mind the thought of ownership. 



In immediate charge for the competing companies are the tall 



