TRACTION ENGINE IN DRY-FARMING 263 



the seed at a given depth; the packer firms the earth around it 

 to bring moisture for quick germination: and the smoothing 

 harrow levels all and leaves the surface mulch. To-morrow 

 the seeding is done. The extra teamsters must be dismissed 

 to await the harvest, the horses fed and cared for against the 

 day they will again be needed. The tractor needs only shelter, 

 and not always is given that. 



Inaction softens the muscles of the animal, but at harvest 

 time the engine comes forth from its shed ready for the hardest 

 work. For each horse on the binder there is a foot or so of 

 cutterbar; for each five horses, a driver. For the engine there 

 are forty feet of sickles, one driver, and two or more men to 

 watch the binders. The engine in twenty hours may travel thirty 

 to thirty-five working miles, and cut nearly five acres to each 

 mile traveled. The grain may be cut neither too early nor too 

 late, the ground disked to check needless exhaustion of the soil 

 moisture, and the entire task completed before the toiling horses 

 have bound the grain out of the way of the sun and storm. 



Dry-farming conditions require, most of all, a means for 

 rapid work when work is needed. The traction engine as a 

 factor in dry-farming has thoroughly demonstrated its use- 

 fulness. It does its work rapidly, enabling the farmer to keep 

 the upper hand of unfavorable conditions. It makes possible 

 the effective conservation of moisture, the thorough eradi- 

 cation of weeds and the maintenance of superb physical con- 

 dition in the semi-arid soils. It reduces the cost of operation 

 to such an extent as to create a new and important source of 

 profits, as compared with earlier systems of farming. A sav- 

 ing of from two to five dollars an acre by the use of a tractor 

 in crop production represents an enormous percentage where 

 the total yield may not be more than twelve to twenty bushels 

 per acre. What is true of dry-farming is true also of other 

 types, for hi the last analysis dry-farming is merely good farm- 

 ing enforced by stern necessity. 



The auxiliary equipment for use with tractors in dry-farm- 



