THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



191 



THE AUTO AND THE FARMER. 



R. E. Olds, president, Reo Motor Car Company, 

 says there must be some good reason for the wide 

 use which the thrifty and practical farmers are mak- 

 ing of automobiles throughout the country, and 

 more especially, of the high-quality, low-priced 

 makes. The motor car evidently must pay the 

 farmer good dividends on his investment for he is 

 not given to spending his money foolishly. He must 

 get a goodly measure of results by way of saving 

 time, labor and money with his motor car. He and 

 his family must be getting much pleasure, comfort 

 and satisfaction with the automobile so long as the 

 use of power vehicles continues to increase so re- 

 markably everywhere among farmers. 



One of our live and enthusiastic farmer patrons 

 recently wrote us how his automobife furnished the 

 power for blowing hay over 100 feet up into a hay 

 mow, whereby one man now easily did more than 

 what three men and two horses formerly did. This 

 he does by jacking up the rear axle and harnessing 

 the motor to one of his old discarded blowers. I can 

 pretty nearly realize the joy and satisfaction which 

 came to this man as a result of saving much time, 

 labor and money with the power plant of his motor 

 car while utilizing a discarded farm implement. 



Another farmer says that he markets all of his 

 wheat and corn with his car by the aid of a trailer. 

 Besides, he now is able to get to the city much 

 oftener and sell his product direct without the aid 

 of the middleman an important factor in reducing 

 the cost of living to the consumer. What is even 

 of greater importance, he has happily solved the 

 problem of how to keep his boys and girls contented 

 on the farm. Under such conditions they would 

 never swap the farm for the shop, while their city 

 cousins trudged back and forth from their work, 

 either afoot or as a straphanger, while working for a 

 scant living salary. 



Then I recall another farmer who puts his car 

 to many practical uses on the farm besides running 

 business errands with it. When the ground is dry 

 and hard he hitches his automobile to a disc plow 

 and cultivates his large orchard in six hours which 

 formerly required from 12 to 18 hours with three 

 horses. He also harnesses his motor power to his 

 corn sheller and thresher, and when the soil is in 

 proper condition he plows, cultivates and sows grain 

 with his car, keeping a horse or two in reserve for 

 emergency only. It is really surprising how many 

 uses a car may be put to on a farm with the exercise 

 o.f a little mechanical ingenuity. 



It is very gratifying to me that hundreds of the 

 cars which I built in 1905, and prior thereto, are still 

 doing yeoman service today. That is due to two 

 things, namely : good construction and good care on 

 the part of the owner and driver. 



As the secret of long life in man lies in good 

 food and proper care, so with a high-quality, reliable 

 car. Give it the best of gasoline, oil and grease, com- 

 bined with careful driving and reasonable protec- 

 tion against the elements and against the extremes 

 of heat and cold, barring tires, a car of known hon- 

 esty and reliability of construction should last a 

 farmer from six to ten years. 



The farmer's life is, at the best, frequently full 



of drudgery and monotony ; even those who count 

 their acres by the hundreds, if they are making a 

 success in their line, cannot get rid of a certain 

 amount of monotony, and it is this monotonous, day 

 in and day out grind, more than anything else, that 

 causes the farmer to break down in middle life. His 

 wife at forty often looks as old as her city sister of 

 fifty-five, while his children drift cityward, where 

 they invariably live up more than they can earn. 



To the modern farmer these days are passing. 

 He realizes that he must not put all his dividends 

 back into working capital, such as land, stock, etc., 

 and leave a great fortune for his city children to law 

 over. But, if he takes more than a narrow interest 

 in his family he finds that he must make the farm 

 home as near ideal as possible, and he puts his 

 money into modern living just as his city brother is 

 doing, and with his modern home equipment, there 

 must follow the motor car. 



He finds that hired help, both on the farm and irr 

 the home, are less difficult to get and keep, and that 

 they will take more interest in their work if he does 

 not forget them once in awhile in his "spins," and 

 also his less fortunate neighbor in this world's goods 

 seems to have a better opinion of him if he remem- 

 bers them occasionally. He finds as the years come 

 and go that his family does not think farm life such 

 a drudgery after all. That his boys take more in- 

 terest in farm stock and farm work, and somehow 

 the city does not seem near so attractive as it once 

 did. 



In view of these facts it is apparent that the 

 motor car, more than any other one thing, will help- 

 solve the farmer's problems. The land owning mam 

 who is running ahead every year is the man who> 

 stays on the farm, and buys a motor car. By so> 

 doing he keeps on the farm the brain and brawn 

 which belongs to it, and thus finds that the motor 

 car pays. (Advertisement.) 



RECLAMATION NOTES. 



(Continued from page 190) 



payment becomes due 5 per cent of the irrigable- 

 area covered by his entry shall have been reclaimed 

 and cultivated he shall obtain the full benefit of 

 the schedule of graduated payments which is as 

 follows : First instalment, $9.30 ; second instal- 

 ment, $1.50; third instalment, $3; fourth instalment. 

 $4; fifth instalment, $5.20; sixth, $10; seventh, $15; 

 eighth, $15; ninth, $15; and tenth, $15. 



Northern Pacific engineers are at work north 

 of Prosser making surveys for an irrigation project 

 to cover about 200,000 acres of land above the 

 Sunnyside government canal in Benton and Yakima 

 counties. Surveys and plans for this project were 

 started three years ago by the Yakima High Line 

 Ditch Association. The Northern Pacific Company 

 owns about 70,000 acres of arid land under this 

 project. About 50,000 acres of the land under the 

 survey is in the Rattlesnake Hills north of Prosser. 



Send $1.00 for 1 year's subscription to the IRRIGA- 

 TION AGE and bound copy of THE PRIMER OF IRRIGA- 

 TION. If you desire a copy of The Primer of Hy- 

 draulics, add $2.50 to above price. 



