70 POWER ON THE FARM 



Draft animals, engines, wind, and water do the work 

 for him. 



Draft animals. - - The most common draft animals 

 are horses and mules. Oxen are used in some parts of 

 our country and in some other countries. Other draft 

 animals used in different parts of the world are ele- 

 phants, buffaloes, reindeer, camels, and dogs. 



The horse and the mule are raised for power purposes 

 alone ; and in many of our states the value of horses 

 and mules is much greater than that of cattle and 

 hogs. If you think of the work of raising our draft 

 animals and the amount of land and time that is given to 

 crops which are grown for their food, you will realize 

 the large cost of power upon the farm. 



Engines. - - Threshing and grinding machinery is 

 usually run by engines that use steam, gasoline, or 

 kerosene. If these engines travel by their o\vn power, 

 they are called traction engines or tractors. Often 

 the land of large farms is plowed by using these traction 

 engines to pull the plows. Several furrows are plowed 

 at a time by the use of gang plows in which there 

 are several moldboard plows or disks fastened together. 

 With one team of horses and a single plow, a man can 

 plow only an acre or two in a day. If he uses four 

 horses and a two-gang plow, one man can break up 

 from two to six acres per day. But with large plows 

 and engines he can plow twenty to forty acres of land 

 in one day. As a man's time is worth more than the 

 time of a horse or a machine, there is economy in using 



