50 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



MR. WALKER (Utah): I would like to ask Mr. Bennion what diffi^ 

 culties he experienced with the steam engine. 



MR. BENNION (Utah): The difficulties I have had are they don't 

 do the work. With the best kind of care there are too many breakages. 

 Breakages consume profit. They are breaking, breaking, breaking all of 

 the time breaking down. I don't know whether it is the fault of the en- 

 gineers or not, but I have traded engineers pretty often, and they are about 

 all the same. (Applause.) 



MR. ALLEN (Utah): I move that Mr. Paxman of Juab, who is here, 

 take the stand and explain this question. 



MR. BRUNTER (Colorado) : In our country there are two disc steam 

 plows and there is one mold board steam plow, and I have had a chance 

 to have some of the disc plow work done on my place ten miles south 

 of Akron. I have had forty acres, or forty-five acres, rather, plowed on 

 the experiment station east of Akron, with a mold-board plow. The work 

 that was done was very nice, but when the ground is a little wet — what 

 we would call nice for breaking with teams — the engine could not work 

 very good; when it was dry the plows slipped out of the ground, so that 

 it took about two weeks to get that forty-five acres plowed. (Laughter.) 



MR. BRUNTER: The gentleman that was with us could run a 

 threshing engine in fine shape. He was a good engineer. So it was not 

 the fault of the engineer. Now the difficulty with us at that time was 

 the traction wheels were narrow, consequently it mired down deeper and 

 didn't have the pulling power it should have had if it had had wider wheels. 

 Wider wheels with the same size engine would have saved considerable 

 time. This turned a 16-inch furrow. When the ground was dry it worked 

 pretty good. As soon as it got in nice breaking condition for the teams 

 we had the same difficulty. We had a 32-horse-power double cross com- 

 pound engine. Every time we came to a low place where the water hap- 

 pened to lodge and made it a little wetter than the balance, we had to 

 stop and get a spade and dig the engine out before we could go ahead. 

 (Laughter.) While the ground was dry, making a successful run, in three 

 hours we plowed 13 3-4 acres. If that speed could be maintained the steam 

 plow would be a great success, but, unfortunately, it rains once in a 

 while on our place. 



I think there is another gentleman down in my country who is think- 

 ing of getting some breaking done, and he advances the theory, why 

 wouldn't oxen be just the .stuff. They cost little on the St. Louis and 

 Kansas City market. (Laughter.) In the first place, he could break all 

 of the prairie he wanted to during the month of June and perhaps until 

 July, and then he could take and turn his oxen on the grass and put them 

 on the market and get his money back. (Laughter.) 



But that is my experience with the steam plow. If the ground is in 

 fair condition, you can make very good progress; otherwise the steam plow 

 seems to be a failure. (Applause.) 



A DELEGATE: Professor Merrill! (Applause.) 



CHAIRMAN DERN: Will Professor Merrill please come forward? 



