THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



247 



judicious advertising in journals reaching such readers in 

 foreign countries in need of the machinery referred to. 



THE IRRIGATION AGE is fortunate in having such a circu- 

 lation which reaches clear around the world, and while the 

 great majority of its readers live in the United States and 

 Canada, we have readers in Australia, East India, Russia, 

 Africa and other foreign countries. These readers are usually 

 influential and responsible heads of irrigation or drainage 

 projects, who, through the medium of our paper, become ac- 

 quainted with the manufacturers of machinery in the United 

 States and thus a way is paved for business relations which 

 frequently result in the buying of thousands of dollars worth 

 of machinery, which is sent abroad and, of course, pays the 

 manufacturer handsomely for the cost of advertisement which 

 brought him the business. 



Thus it is seen that mere numbers of reader's or sub- 

 scribers cannot be taken as a criterion on the value of a pub- 

 lication as an advertising medium; it is results the advertiser 

 is after and results are always obtained by those who patron- 

 ize the advertising columns of THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Modern progress has evolved machinery that 

 Wanted is wonderful and has done much for the farm- 



An er in giving him improved tools for the culti- 



Automatic vation of his fields and for the harvesting of 

 Horse his crops. It has given him powerful tractors, 



where one engine will do the work of fifty or 

 more horses, engines that pull many plows at one fell swoop. 



But the little farmer and settler whose holdings do not 

 warrant machinery on this scale is left out. He still is com- 

 pelled to cling to the horse for his motive power in his farm- 

 ing operations, and a horse is an expensive animal, especially 

 in countries where, due to bad weather or cold winters, he 

 is idle half the year or so. The feed of an idle horse is an 

 important factor, and if it be possible to produce a gasoline 

 tractor of one or two horse-power that will do the work of 

 horses a great step will then have been taken forward in the 

 direction of national economy and the success of the small 

 farm units will be practically assured. 



Such an engine should be made very strong so it could 

 stand rough usage; very simple, so anyone with ordinary in- 

 telligence could run it, and at a reasonable cost so anyone 

 of the small farmers would be able to buy it. The machine 

 should be compact so that it can be used in narrow lanes and 

 can turn short corners; it should be made so that it can be 

 hitched to a plow or wagon and can be regulated by reins 

 from the plow or wagon similar to the horse. It should be 

 adaptable to be hitched to the pump to do the necessary 

 pumping, to the circular saw to cut the fire wood, to the 

 sewing machine and to the dynamo to generate electricity for 

 lights at night. 



An automatic horse of this kind would be the greatest 

 boon in the way of machinery that can be conferred upon the 

 small farmer and would be a powerful factor in developing 

 many small farms which are now idle because of the higher 

 relative cost of operating them. 



Helping 

 the 

 Small 

 Farmer 



It is currently reported that Julius Rosenwald, 

 president of the big mail-order house of 

 Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago, has formu- 

 lated a plan to spend one million dollars to 

 help the cause of the farmer and particularly 

 the cause of Intensive Farming, or the small 

 farmer. An immediate gift of $100,000 is contemplated to be 

 used in a hundred counties through the west for the better- 

 ment of agricultural conditions pertaining to these counties. 

 All the details of the plan have, however, not been worked 



out as yet, but it shows that large business interests begin 

 to see the necessity of assisting the small farmer by teaching 

 him how to make use of modern and improved methods in 

 order to harvest better crops and thus give him a greater 

 measure of prosperity. 



It is stated that the plan contemplates that this financial 

 aid will be given to counties only where other moneys are 

 raised for the same purpose from other sources. 



It would seem that such efforts should be carefully 

 planned and executed according to a well-developed general 

 idea in doing the most good to the greatest number and that 

 they ought to work in conjunction with the machinery of the 

 Agricultural Department, which has done so much in this 

 direction during late years; such private aid to advance the 

 cause of farming should be turned over to this department 

 directly, for it to disburse it systematically in a general ad- 

 vance along all lines of agriculture rather than to concentrate 

 special help in a few chosen counties or localities. 



The awful catastrophe which took place in 

 The the early morning hours of April 14th, when 



Lessons the White Star liner Titanic, after a collision 



of the with an iceberg, went to the bottom of the 



Titanic ocean carrying about 1,500 people down with 



her to a watery grave, has stirred up humanity 

 from one end of the world to another. 



That such a calamity should have befallen a vessel which 

 was considered the crown of modern nautical architecture 

 was hardly believed until no further doubt was possible. 



It is even now somewhat early to pass judgment in the 

 matter and to place the responsibility for this terrible thing 

 with the facts now established after a thorough inquiry it 

 may be said that the fault cannot be laid at the door of any 

 individual alone nor yet at the door of the corporation alone, 

 but that our modern civilization itself must bear a heavy 

 share of the burden of responsibility. We are living in a 

 record-breaking age; the Titanic was the largest vessel afloat, 

 and it had been designed to be at the same time the speediest. 

 Of course the traveling public wants speed and wants broken 

 records, and so the White Star line should not be censured 

 too harshly in wishing that the new sea monster should beat 

 all previous records in time from England to New York. 

 That instructions to this effect had been given to the captain 

 and that a director of the line was on the Titanic to see that 

 the time schedule be shortened there seems to be no doubt; 

 and had the trip occurred two months later such would, no 

 doubt, have been then an accomplished fact, and the praises 

 of the Titanic and its progressive owners would have been 

 heralded far and wide. 



But as a matter of fact the shortest line between England 

 and New York lies close to the Banks of Newfoundland, in 

 whose vicinity there is an abundance of ice fields and icebergs 

 during the winter and spring, which, per se, should have been 

 a danger sign for the Titanic when it's officers decided to take 

 the shortest route. If they had not taken the shortest route 

 they could not have broken the record, hence no fault can be 

 found with the officers for that. But now we reach a point 

 where the captain of the boat must be censured, for word 

 was sent to the Titanic by other vessels that there were dan- 

 gerous ice fields and icebergs ahead; he should at this junc- 

 ture ordered a reduction in speed and a sharp lookout for 

 the dangerous floating bergs. No one perhaps will ever know 

 whether or not Captain Smith made such suggestion to Mr. 

 Ismay, the representative of the transportation line, but since 

 the boat kept up its speed it shows that the warnings were 

 disregarded. This speed was kept up during the fatal night. 



