FUEL FOR GAS TRACTORS 129 



the ratio of water to fuel increases with the load until at full 

 load it is practically 1.1. Roughly, it may be said that few gas 

 tractors use a barrel of water per day in the heaviest work 

 during the hottest weather. 



THE PLOW 

 Will H. Ogilvie, in the London Spectator 



From Egypt behind my oxen, with their stately step and slow, 

 Northward and east and west I went to the desert sand and the snow; 

 Down through the centuries, one by one, turning the clod to the shower, 

 Till there's never a land beneath the sun but has blossomed behind the power. 



I slide through the sodden rice-fields with my grunting, hump-backed steers, 

 I turned the turf of the Tiber plain in Rome's imperial years; 

 I was left in the half-drawn furrow when Cincinnatus came, 

 Giving his farm for the Forum's stir to save his nation's name. 



Over the seas to the north I went; white din's and a seaboard blue; 

 And my path was glad in the English grass as my stout, red Devons drew; 

 My path was glad in the English grass, for behind me rippled and curled 

 The com that was life to the sailormen that sailed the ships of the world. 



And later I went to the north again, and day by day drew down 

 A little more of the purple hills to join my kingdom brown; 

 And the whaups wheeled out to the moorland, but the gay gulls stayed with me 

 Where the Clydesdales drummed a marching song with their feathered feet 

 on the lea. 



Then the new lands called me westward; I found on the prairies wide 



A toil to my stoutest daring and a foe to test my pride; 



But I stooped my strength to the stiff, black loam, and I found my labor sweet 



As I loosened the soil that was trampled firm by a million buffaloes' feet. 



Then farther away to the northward; outward and outward still, 



(But idle I crossed the Rockies, for there no plow may till!) 



Till I won to the plains unending, and there on the edge of the snow 



I ribbed them the fenceless wheat fields, and taught them to reap and sow. 



The sun of the Southland called me; I turned her the rich brown lines 

 Where the paramatta peach trees grow and her green Mildura vines; 

 I drove her cattle before me, her dust and her dying sheep, 

 I painted her rich plains golden, and taught her to sow and reap. 



From Egypt behind my oxen, with stately step and slow, 



I have carried your weightiest burdens, ye toilers that reap and sow" 



I am the ruler, the king, and I hold the world in fee; 



Sword upon sword may ring, but the triumph shall rest with me. 



