THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



215 



FARM MACHINERY INVESTIGATIONS. 



Address by Prof. C. J. Zintheo Before the N. A. A. I. and V. M. 



WHAT MODERN MACHINERY SAVES. 



The success of agricultural pursuits depends pri- 

 marily upon the accomplishment of the largest possible 

 results at a minimum cost. For this reason agricultural 

 implements are bound to become more and more impor- 

 tant, because mainly through them can the farmer re- 

 duce the cost of production. To illustrate this it is only 

 necessary to state that in 1830 it took over three hours' 

 labor to raise one bushel of wheat, while in 1896 it took 

 ten minutes, making a difference in the cost of labor 

 in one bushel of wheat between 18% cents and 3 cents. 



In 1850 the labor represented in one bushel of corn 

 was four and one-half hours, while in 1894 it had been 

 reduced to fortv-one minutes. In 1860 the labor in one 



Prof. C. J. Zintheo, 

 U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 



ton of hay, in bales, represented thirty-five and one-half 

 hours, while in 1894 this labor was reduced to eleven 

 and one-half hours or from a cost of $3.00 in labor to 

 $1.29. The American farmers of today, with less than 

 one-third the labor of the country, produce enough food 

 to support not only themselves but the other sixty-seven 

 per cent, of people that live in the cities, and exported 

 farm products during the year 1904 to the value of 

 $960,000,000. Much of the credit of this great achieve- 

 ment is due to the American geniuses who have devel- 

 oped the modern farm implements and have supplied 

 our farmers with tools by which they are able to produce 

 more cheaply than any land under the sun, thereby 

 enabling them to sell their products in the open mar- 

 kets of the world, in competition with the poorly paid 

 laborers of other countries. 



The American farmers buy annually $100,000,000 

 worth of farm implements, and the total value of ma- 

 chinery on the farms in this country is $761,261,000. 

 On this last investment the farmer ought to make a rea- 

 sonable interest, and for this reason it is of great im- 



portance that the implements which he buys should meet 

 all the requirements for which they were purchased. 

 The efficiency of an implement does not depend entirely 

 upon the kind of work it does, but also upon the power 

 required to do the work, the simplicity of construction, 

 the strength and durability of its material, and its 

 adaptability to varying conditions. In order to judge 

 the practical value of any machine, it is necessary that 

 it be subjected to a careful, well arranged and impartial 

 test. The farmers are not able to conduct such investi- 

 gations nor are the manufacturers able to pass impartial 

 judgment on their implements. It is, therefore, of great 

 value to have the machines and implements tested by 

 competent, disinterested parties. Such investigations 

 are quite new in this country, but they are not new in 

 most of the European countries. 



Since 1860 there have been conducted in Sweden 

 trials of farm implements, either at the request of agri- 

 cultural societies or in connection with agricultural 

 fairs, but they were of little importance until the gov- 

 ernment made appropriations for the expense of con- 

 ducting these trials, which they did as early as 1886. 



In 1896 the Swedish government started the first 

 official station for field trials of agricultural implements. 

 In these trials were included seeding machinery, fer- 

 tilizer spreaders, beet sugar tools, plows, harrows and 

 land rollers, hay presses, cream separators, churns and 

 butter workers, as well as pasteurizers and milk coolers. 

 It was soon learned that such trials were not only of 

 benefit to the farmers in choosing their machines, but 

 they were of great value to implement manufacturers 

 in that they pointed out defects in construction and 

 weak points in the design of the machine. The chief 

 reason for the rapid progress which has been made in 

 Sweden in the manufacture of agricultural implements 

 and dairy machinery is ascribed to impetus given 

 through these official tests. As is well known, Sweden 

 supplies dairy machinery to practically all of Europe, 

 and has a very large trade in Siberia, as well as other 

 parts of the world. 



The Swedish government was urged by the imple- 

 ment manufacturers to appropriate money for the per- 

 manent establishment of experiment stations for the 

 testing of implements. This was accomplished by a dona- 

 tion from the Separator Dairy Machinery Company, 

 which in 1896 presented to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture 100,000 crowns, of which 10,000 crowns was to be 

 spent annually in farm machinery investigations. Two 

 experiment stations were established in connection with 

 the agricultural colleges, and equipped with instruments 

 for conducting the experiments, which have been car- 

 ried on regularly since that time, and bulletins of con- 

 siderable merit have been issued. 



Since 1877 field trials with farm implements have 

 been conducted in Norway as a branch of the investi- 

 gations of the Society for Norway's Welfare. The re- 

 sults of only part of these experiments have been pub- 

 lished. 



In Denmark farm implement experiments have 

 . been carried on at different times since 1872. At first 

 they consisted of competitive field trials, at which 

 medals and prizes were awarded, but since 1896 no 

 awards have been made. The tests are now conducted 

 mostly on implements that are new and not well known 

 in the country. In this way they prove to be of great 

 value, both to the farmers and implement manufactur- 

 ers, in the introduction of new machinery. 



