October, 1911 
troubles and in general improvement of dairy conditions he 
gains in reputation and satisfaction of mind. The vacuum 
milking machine is responsible, with a gasoline engine off at 
the dairy house energetically minding its business of run- 
ning the vacuum pump and the cream separator. Ten to 
fifteen cows per man per hour is the new standard of 
capacity, with far less work and dirt. The vacuum cleaning 
principle is applied to the cows by a slight addition to the 
equipment. All the dirt, loose hair and other foreign mat- 
ter can be drawn off into a dust collector and removed. By 
the ordinary process of 
currying and brushing, 
these sources of con- 
tamination are stirred 
up to fly about the 
stable and settle upon 
the utensils. In dairies 
of fifty cows or less 
an engine of one and 
one half horse-power 
is suficiently powerful 
to run the four to six 
milkers usually attached 
and to handle other 
dairy machinery besides. 
The livestock is rid 
of its surplus of old 
hair neatly and rapidly 
through the agency of 
a power clipping ma- 
chine and a very small 
engine. The engine 
may assist in spraying the cattle for parasites, whitewash- 
ing and spraying the interior of the barn as a preventive 
measure. Spraying now extends to the orchard also, where 
insect and fungus enemies are successfully combated. 
Filling the silo has rather grown beyond the limits of 
hand work, though it started in the same class with the work 
of chopping roots, corn, grasses, etc., by hand. All this 
work, heavy or light, may now be done by the gasoline 
engine, and the number of silos has increased in thirty years 
from less than one hundred to many thousands. ‘This en- 
gine, to be of the most approved type, should be of about 
twelve or fifteen brake horse-power and handle close to 
seventy-five tons of corn fodder per day on ten to twelve 
gallons of gasoline. 
The internal combustion engine for such work must have 
an excess over the average power requirements, as the load 
is irregular and the speed must be kept up in order to 
obtain efficient results from the ensilage cutter. On this 
account a heavy fly-wheel is added to equalize the motion 
of the engine. Again, some manufacturers, following the 
lead of the builders of large gas engines for heavy duty, are 
adopting the volume, or throttling, governor in place of the 
hit-and-miss type. In the latter the explosions are occa- 
sionally ‘cut out’’ by automatic action of the governor when 
the speed increases above the normal, to be resumed again 
when the absence of power impulses causes the speed to 
drop below normal. The throttling governor admits a 
charge for each cycle, proportioning it each time to the needs 
of the load. It is, therefore, slightly less economical on 
light loads than the hit-and-miss type, but for the heavy, 
irregular work of shredding corn, filling the silo, sawing 
wood, etc., it can be depended on to furnish steadier power. 
“Bucking wood” no longer has its terrors for the farm 
boy. If the farm cannot afford the investment in a saw 
to go with the gasoline engine, there is very apt to be a 
neighborhood saw. Wood is not a perishable product, 
however, and farmers are often content to wait until the 
owner of a large outfit puts in an appearance and does the 
work on a custom basis. 
The milking of ten to fifteen cows 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
373 
One of the most exhausting chores in connection with the 
harvesting of the corn crop is shoveling off the load after a 
day of ten or twelve hours in the field. Now a two horse- 
power gasoline engine, attached to a portable elevator, will 
empty a thirty-bushel load of ear corn into a car, corn crib 
or granary in from three to six minutes. The same is true to 
some extent of the small grain crops. Very often both eleva- 
tor and engine are mounted on the same truck, and in con- 
nection with the large threshing outfits this combination 
saves labor that is hard to get just at that time. The wagon 
is driven into position, 
the front wheels ele- 
vated and the rear end 
gate removed. The 
grain falls into the 
hopper, is elevated by 
an endless conveyor 
and delivered by a 
flexible spout at heights 
practically impossible 
by hand. ‘The engine 
has therefore made it 
possible to. build 
granaries and corn 
cribs higher, at a con- 
siderable saving in 
initial expense per unit 
of storage space. 
On farms where 
heavy machinery, 
portable buildings, etc., 
have to be moved fre- 
quently from place to place, the portable gasoline engine 
equipped with a winch and cable is often indispensable. A 
five horse-power engine may occasionally be seen putting 
a fifteen-ton tractor into a space on a storage floor which 
would not withstand the combination of weight and vibra- 
tion produced by running the tractor under its own power. 
It has been conclusively demonstrated that the horse is 
a more flexible traction power unit than the gasoline 
engine. He may be coupled up in teams of varying size, 
and in a pinch can pull to many times his normal capacity. 
At the same time, for driving rotary mechanism of fairly 
constant resistance, the engine has a great advantage over 
the horse in endurance. This is further emphasized by the 
loss entailed in transforming the linear motion of the 
animal’s forward progress into the rotary motion of the 
machine. While a school of engineers in France has been 
arguing that the ideal farm machine should use horses for 
propelling it and the engine for performing its effective 
work, Yankee ingenuity has perfected the combination. 
From mounting a small stationary engine upon the frame of 
a grain binder, which was done repeatedly by inventive 
farmers before manufacturers grasped the possibility, we 
have now come to an engine mounted on wheels and con- 
nected by a shaft and universal joint to the driving shaft 
of the harvester. This outfit goes merrily up hill and down 
dale with two horses where four or five were formerly em- 
ployed. It is especially adaptable to cutting rice or grain 
on soft ground where the traction wheel of the binder 
could not grip the surface firmly enough to transmit the re- 
quired power. 
To the average farmer electricity is a mysterious agent, 
to be gingerly dealt with. Up to date the widest use of 
electricity on the farm is for lighting and for the light tasks 
about the house. Current for general power uses has 
usually proved more costly than power derived from the 
gasoline engine, and the kerosene engine has even further 
increased the handicap. Moreover, the engine, as a self- 
contained and easily portable unit, is much more convenient 
for use at different points. In isolated cases, however, a 
an hour with hydraulic apparatus 
