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separator skims the milk, and water or wind power runs the churn. The gasoline 
or steam motor is beginning to haul the product of the truck farm to the city market, 
rendering the farmer equally independent of horses and railways. 
In the same way it has enabled the western farmer to plant and harvest large 
areas, notwithstanding the scanty labor supply to be found there. Last year a 
traction engine in California cut and thrashed over a hundred acres of wheat in a 
single day, doing the work of nearly one hundred horses with modern mowing and 
reaping machinery, and equaling the result accomplished by that many men and 
horses fifty years ago. Less than a century separates the operation of machines 
like this and the cutting of grain with the scythe and thrashing it with the flail, 
and the improvements which have been made in harvesting machinery have been 
duplicated in many other lines of farm work. There are now traction engines which 
plow 30 acres of ground in a day. Recently a gasoline motor has been invented which 
promises to be as successful in displacing the horse in certain lines of work on the 
farm as the automobile is on the country roads. 
The demands which these changes are making on the farmer for a knowledge of 
the principles of mechanics and for a certain amount of skill in their application is 
so much greater than it was a century ago that it can not be stated as a percentage. 
The question w r e have to consider is whether we have recognized this change in the 
courses of instruction in our agricultural colleges. Your committee is unanimously of 
the opinion that we have not, and that the facilities for instruction are not in keeping 
with the importance of this branch of agriculture. In the majority of institutions 
the same kind of mechanical training is given agricultural students as to students 
who expect to work in factories, while the work to be done by the farmer in the use 
of machines and tools is of a radically different character. On the farm one man 
must do many kinds of work and hence must use many different kinds of tools; in 
shops and factories one man does one thing or a few things only. This highly 
developed specialization produces efficient labor. A man uses a tool until he under- 
stands it thoroughly, recognizes immediately any defect, acquires a feeling of owner- 
ship in it, gives it constant care, and is often able to make improvements in its con- 
struction. All this is very different in the experience of the farmer. He uses one 
machine only a short time and then must take up another. What is learned about 
the construction and use of a machine at one time is largely lost before it is again 
called into use. The result of all this is that the farmer fails to develop that interest 
and mechanical sense which are necessary to the highest efficiency in the operation 
of the complex machinery which now forms a part of the equipment of every 
modern farm. 
The records of the last census show that over one hundred million dollars worth 
of farm machinery is made and sold each year. The saving which would come to 
the people of this country by extending the life of each machine one year would be 
an immense addition to the annual profits of our farmers. This saving can be more 
than" realized and it can be augmented by the greater efficiency which would come 
from expert care and management. At present it is notorious that the American 
farmer, with all his mechanical aptitude and inventive skill, is behind the other 
leading agricultural countries in his management and care of agricultural machinery. 
It is believed that this is largely due to the neglect of this subject in our schools. 
In Germany, France, and more recently in England, a well-equipped laboratory for 
testing agricultural machines and a museum filled with samples of machines of dif- 
ferent patterns for examination by students is held to be as essential to proper 
instruction as a chemical laboratory. The first floor of the agricultural high school 
at Berlin contains a museum in which are found the best types of agricultural imple- 
ments of the United States, England, and Germany. The student who makes proper 
use of that museum has a better understanding of the principles which govern the 
construction of the tools he is to use and the modifications to conform to different 
uses than it would be possible for him to acquire in any other way, and it is a kind 
of training especially demanded by the conditions of American farm life. 
This training in the agricultural institutions of Germany is regarded there as of the 
highest value not only by farmers but by manufacturers. It gives them trained 
workmen in their shops; it gives them trained agents to extend their export trade in 
different countries. The union of agricultural and mechanical knowledge in their 
employees and agents has enabled German implement makers to greatly increase 
their export trade, and it is believed that the same result would follow similar train- 
ing here. If we are to maintain our standing as a producing and manufacturing 
nation we must maintain our superiority as designers and users of farm machinery, 
and this can be best promoted by bringing the trained intelligence of the experts of 
the Department of Agriculture and of the students and professors of our agricultural 
colleges to bear on this problem. A few colleges have created departments for instruc- 
tion in certain branches of rural engineering, the departments of irrigation engineer- 
21730— Xo. 142—04 
