250 



THE IKEIGATION AGE. 



The semi-arid region of the West, which comprises 

 about one-fourth of our agricultural domain, is still of 

 very little value for farming purposes. Much of this 

 land will be brought under irrigation and new varie- 

 ties of farm implements will be needed to cultivate the 

 crops on these lands. There will still remain large areas 

 which will be devoted to dry farming. New drought- 

 resisting varieties of grain are being introduced into 

 those sections and special implements, entirely unknown 

 in the East, are being used for the conservation of mois- 

 ture in the soil. 



We are now co-operating with the experiment sta- 

 tions in that section and with the Union Pacific, North- 

 ern Pacific and Great Northern railroads in tests of tools 

 for conserving the moisture in the soil and utilizing 

 all the a-vailable rainfall for the production of crops. 

 The implements used in these experiments will be care- 

 fully investigated and we hope to be of assistance to both 

 the farmers and implement manufacturers in determin- 

 ing what methods and implements to use in the soil 

 cultivation in these sections. 



The traction engine is now being introduced on the 

 large farms of the western states to take the place of 

 horses for plowing, cultivating and seeding. No accu- 

 rate investigations have as yet been made to determine 

 the efficiency of this method of soil cultivation or the 

 comparative cost between the use of horses and other 

 forms of motive power for the farm. We hope to be 

 able to investigate the subject so that both the farmers 

 and manufacturers may know when and where traction 

 engines can be economically employed for farm culti- 

 vation. 



The windmill has been used for years for pumping 

 purposes on the American farm, but for other power 

 purposes it is hardly built strong enough to be of much 

 value. There is an enormous amount of energy going 

 to waste with the movement of the wind, which in the 

 semi-arid region of the West could be utilized in pump- 

 ing water for irrigation. If suitable windmills were con- 

 structed to utilize the full power of the wind. In order 

 to do this it will be necessary to invent some automatic 

 arrangement which will vary the length of the stroke 

 of the piston with the velocity of the wind. We are now 

 experimenting with several different makes of windmills 

 in the western states to determine what can be done with 

 windmill irrigation. 



The subject of power for the American farm is now 

 in the transition period. Where formerly all the farm 

 work was done by the horses and an occasional windmill 

 for pumping water, the gasoline engine is now finding 

 rapid favor as a farm motor, and its usefulness can be 

 greatly extended in doing much of the disagreeable work 

 on the farm. The farmers need information on methods 

 of installing their power plants, so that they may use 

 these motors economically and to the best advantage. 



Numerous and conflicting statements are made as 

 to the amount of gasoline used per horse-power hour, 

 and no definite information from actual tests is avail- 

 able, from which the users of these engines may know 

 the cost producing power. An investigation of this sub- 

 ject will be of great value both for the farmer and the 

 manufacturers. With the introduction of the gasoline 

 engine comes the increase in cost of gasoline to almost 

 double the price of a few years ago, and the producers 

 claim that the demand will soon exceed the supply. It 

 is, therefore, of the utmost importance to find some 

 other fuel to take the place of gasoline in internal com- 



bustion engines. Germany has investigated this prob- 

 lem to the great advantage of her farmers. 



"Germany has no natural gas wells or native petro- 

 leum supply. When some years ago the question of 

 adopting motor carriages for military purposes was un- 

 der discussion it was remarked by the officials of the 

 War Department that kerosene and gasoline could only 

 be operated with one or the other of the products of 

 petroleum, which is not produced in Germany, and the 

 supply of which might, in case of war, be wholly cut 

 off. But the broad sandy plains of northern Germany 

 produce in ordinary years cheap and abundant crops of 

 potatoes, from which is easily manufactured, by pro- 

 cesses so simple as to be within the capacity of every 

 farmer, a vast quantity of raw alcohol. German in- 

 ventors and scientists have been busy with improvements 

 in the processes of machinery and distilleries. New and 

 highly perfected motors, lamps and cooking and heating 

 apparatus have been devised and put into use, until 

 crude alcohol is becoming one of the most widely utilized 

 products of German industry." The German govern- 

 ment has encouraged this industry in every way possible 

 and has removed all taxes from alcohol used for tech- 

 nical purposes. The alcohol has been produced in Ger- 

 many for 13 cents per gallon and with very slight 

 changes can be utilized in the ordinary gasoline engine 

 in place of gasoline. 



We hope to conduct experiments in co-operation 

 with gas engine manufacturers to determine just what 

 changes are necessary in the present gasoline engines 

 to adapt them to the use of alcohol as a source of motive 

 power. Also to learn at what price per gallon the alco- 

 hol can be manufactured in this country from the waste 

 materials on the farm, such as small and unsalable 

 potatoes, poor grades of corn and barley, and even 

 waste cornstalks, beet pulp and sawdust. There is no 

 question but that alcohol can be used as a substitute for 

 gasoline for various purposes, nor is there any doubt 

 but that a great many of the products of the farm now 

 wasted can be utilized for the production of alcohol. 



The introduction of alcohol for technical purposes 

 and its manufacture from the products of the American 

 farms will open up new fields of labor. The farm houses 

 will have all the modern improvements of city homes. 

 They will be lighted by alcohol, the farmer's wife will 

 cook the food without much labor and the farmer will 

 be able to apply this source of power to a great number 

 of the drudgeries of the farm and perhaps do his gen- 

 eral farm work with alcohol motors instead of horses. 

 In order that this may be accomplished, it will be nec- 

 essary to remove the tax from alcohol used for technical 

 purposes, as the revenue tax is now nearly fourteen times 

 the cost of manufacture. A bill for the removal of this 

 tax was introduced at the last session of Congress by 

 Congressman Charles S. Boutell, of Chicago. 



We also expect to experiment with gas producer 

 gas engines, using lignite coal, which is found in such 

 abundance in North Dakota, where large irrigation proj- 

 ects are now under way and where it will be necessary 

 to pump water for irrigation. Lignite coal seems to 

 contain a greater percentage of gas than other coal. If 

 a cheap power can be found for pumping in irrigation, 

 for manufacturing and agricultural purposes in the 

 western country, it will cause great changes in its devel- 

 opment, and it will support millions of people where 

 now an occasional cowboy is the sole inhabitant. 



It will thus be noticed that the Farm Machinery 



