43 



ploughing and threshing are made stronger in the traction gearing and 

 .also in the boiler, and cost about $450 more than the ordinary traction 

 threshing engine. In North Dakota the fuel used is lignite and costs from 

 $2 to $3 per ton, depending on the distance from the mine. A 25 horse- 

 power engine will use about four tons per day. Such an engine, equipped 

 for ploughing, costs about $2,000, while the ploughs, say, six 14-inch, cost 

 from $125 to $600, depending on the quality. Such an engine will 

 .average from 13 to 14 acres per day, ploughing three to five inches deep. 

 Four men are usually employed on this outfit ; the engineers receiving 

 $3.50 to $4.50 per day, the other men from $1.25 to $1.50. The usual 

 price charged for breaking up virgin prairie is $3.50 per acre, or $4.35 

 for ploughing, discing, and seeding. The daily expense for such an 

 engine may be put down at $20 — a sum which would cover the cost of 

 fuel and wages of the men. These ploughing outfits are only used for a 

 period of five or six months and they usually are expected to turn over 

 about 1,500 acres in the season. Steam power is not used nearly 

 so extensively in the eastern part of the State, as the land has 

 .more stone on it, and also more swampy spots, which would greatly inter- 

 fere with the use of an engine.* I left Dickinson at 11.5 a.m. and 

 reached Minneapolis next morning at 8.50 a.m. 



On Friday, 28th May, I left Minneapolis by the 10.20 p.m. train on 

 the North-western Eailway and arrived next morning at Madison, where 

 the University of Wisconsin is located, which lies 120 miles to 

 the west of Chicago. After studying the wonderful agricultural 

 extension work of this splendid institution I journeyed to Moline, 

 Illinois. Moline is a pretty town on the banks of the Mississippi Eiver, 

 situated 170 miles to the south-west of Chicago. It is purely a manufac- 

 turing town of some 25,000 inhabitants. In connection with dry-farming, 

 I had always wished to see the making of ploughs in a modern factory, 

 and I spent a most interesting and instructive forenoon in the workshops 

 of the John Deere Company, the largest steel plough factory in the world. 

 The President of the Company, Mr. William Butterworth, received me 

 most courteously, and detailed his technical manager to show me the 

 factory. The magnitude of the operations and the labour-saving devices filled 

 one with amazement. The machines are almost human in their marvellous 

 ingenuity. Each part of the plough is made separately by the thousand, 

 ^and then all are welded or bolted together, as the case may be. The care 

 taken in polishing and smoothing the share so as to get a perfect adjust- 

 ment is truly wonderful. After the plough is put together it is hung up 

 to the ceiling and travels around the building on an iron rail, never 

 touching the ground until it is sold. It is painted in three seconds and 

 varnished with the same lightning speed — a clutch is released and two 

 ploughs at a time are dropped into a paint tank and swung up to dry. 

 'The pounding each steel part receives by the huge electric hammers is 

 simply terrific and makes jou wonder how a plough could ever break. 

 Besides an enormous trade in ploughs this company has also made ai 

 speciality of corn planters and disc harrows, and I saw hundreds of these 

 implements in the process of manufacture. Here, too, I was interested 



* The following are some of the firms manufacturing steam engines used for ploughing: — 

 Avery Manufacturing Company. Peoria, Illinois ; J. I. Case Company, Racine. Wisconsin ; 

 Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company ; Hopkins, Minnesota ; and Reeves & Company, 

 ■ Columbus, Indiana. 



