72 
For these reasons, I do now recommend that the Board of 
Agriculture and Forestry approve this project and request the 
Governor, after the required hearing, to set apart as an addi- 
tion to the Kau Forest Reserve the area embraced in the ac- 
companying technical description. 
Very respectfully, 
Ralph S. Hosmer, 
Superintendent of Forestry. 
MECHANICAL POWER FOR THE FARM. 
One of the interesting features of the land show in Chi- 
cago last month was mechanical power for the farm. This 
took the form not only of the tractors themselves, but was 
supplemented by a daily illustrated lecture on the economic 
advantages of plowing and doing other farm work by means 
of engines instead of horses. The lecture was not a recital 
of the joy to be derived from a "seeing of the wheels go 
'round," but a consideration of mechanical power strictly as 
a business proposition. There was a time when the farmer 
was not classed as a business man. Today he is not only 
more a producer than the manufacturer, but his range of 
products is such that the volume of his sales compares favor- 
ably with those of many country merchants. In his crop pro- 
duction and delivery for shipment he has come to the point 
where he can use power-driven machinery to quite an ex- 
tent, and we may reasonably anticipate in the next ten years 
a large demand for traction power by farmers, especially 
those operating several hundred acres. We will come to this 
through the use of automobiles, which farmers are now buying 
by thousands. 
Some of the records cited are interesting. For instance, 
on the big Dakota farms where the plowing, seeding, harvest- 
ing, threshing and hauling, all are accomplished with engines, 
the cost is reduced $2.10 per acre. Plowing which formerly 
cost $1.35 with horses falls to 76 cents with power; pulveriz- 
ing, from 63 cents to 17 cents; and hauling, from v$1.00 to 26 
cents per acre. The final results are stated to amount to a 
net saving of 10 cents per bushel, or about 5 per cent, on 
the cost of a 600-acre farm. — H. H. Windsor in the January 
Popular Mechanics Magazine. 
