FUTURE OF THE TRACTION ENGINE 299 



distributed among many machines of the standard types. 

 The tractor is at the dawn, rather than the twilight, of its 

 development. 



The rapidly increasing sale of tractors is due quite largely 

 to the many new uses to which they have been put. The traction 

 engine has developed from a monstrous toy into a powerful 

 and efficient servant. Its influence on the plow and production 

 has already been discussed. With the plow and the thresher 

 it has revolutionized the grain-raising industry, made possible 

 the settling of the Great American Desert, cheapened the cost, 

 and tremendously improved the quality, of our daily bread. 

 The same engines that solve the dry-farming problem may have 

 to cross rough fields with the threshing separator, ford streams 

 where bridges are unsafe or have not yet been built, and even 

 climb sizable mountains. It is all in the day's work, and has 

 no terrors for the experienced tractioneer. Perhaps the house 

 or granary needs moving, or maybe it is a load of lumber from 

 the railway. Possibly the road has to be built first, or perhaps 

 the railway, and after sawing timber for bridges and ties, the 

 tractor must grade the embankment all the way from farm to 

 the flour mill. 



Off the farm the tractor has made possible the utilization 

 of many out-of-the-way patches of timber, and numerous 

 small deposits of stone have been turned by its aid into crushed 

 surfacing material for the highway. It is rapidly displacing 

 the horse in building and maintaining country roads. It digs 

 irrigation canals and fills drainage ditches. Contractors are 

 employing it more and more hi the arts of peace, and nations 

 are increasing its use for the business of war. It has hauled 

 machinery to the mines, raised the ore and carried it to the 

 railroad or smelter. It has brought enormous logs out of the 

 forest where big teams of horses could not manoeuvre. It hauls 

 the drill and the well casing to the oil field and helps produce 

 its own fuel. Even that most marvelously organized thing, 

 the modern circus, is playing traitor to the elephant and shifting 



