Tractors for Grove Cultivation 
Frazier Rogers, Gainesville 
Since the standard by which American 
farming is measured is production per 
man and not yields per acre, the value of 
improved farm machinery per farm can 
be taken as an indication of not only the 
efficiency of the farmer but also his actual 
labor income. Numerous farm surveys 
have brought this fact to our attention. 
Don’t misunderstand me, for I do not 
mean to convey the idea that the way to 
make a success with citrus is to purchase 
every new-fangled machine that comes on 
the market, but I do say that your chance 
for making a profit on citrus is dependent 
to a great extent on the use of machinery. 
The wheat farmer of today using modern 
methods and machinery can grow as much 
wheat in three months as the old Roman 
farmer could grow using his methods and 
working io hours per day six days a week 
for all of his three score and ten years. 
In 1850 it took four-fifths of the pop¬ 
ulation of the United States to feed them¬ 
selves and the other fifth. Now thirty 
per cent of our population are feeding 
themselves and the other seventy per 
cent. The yield per acre has increased 
only a very little during this period, and 
we are far behind the Japanese in this re¬ 
spect. Their average wheat yield was 21 
bushels in 1920, while our yield was 13.8 
bushels for the same year. Does that 
mean that we should turn from our meth¬ 
ods of agriculture and go to those of 
Japan? Far from it, for in Japan the 
bushel is what counts while in America 
the man is the important factor. The 
farm tractor is one of the many improved 
farm machines that has enabled a man to 
handle more acres. It is rapidly becoming 
one of the essential machines of our 
farms. Already the value of the tractors 
produced yearly has exceeded that of all 
other farm machinery. In 1920 the value 
of all machinery produced, including the 
tractor, was 535 millions of dollars; of 
this sum 270 millions of dollars represents 
the tractors produced. 
The subject as given me by the chair¬ 
man of our committee was the utilization 
of the farm tractor in the cultivation of 
citrus groves. While I can never think 
that the horse can be entirely replaced on 
the general farms of the country by me¬ 
chanical power, I am confident that it can 
replace the horse to a great extent on the 
citrus groves in this State. There are a 
number of reasons why the tractor could 
be very profitably used by our citrus 
growers; the first of which is the rate at 
which the tractor works. The average 
number of acres cultivated by a tractor in 
a io-hour day was shown to be 20 acres. 
This data comes from men who are actu¬ 
ally operating tractors in groves. The ad¬ 
vantage then in being able to cultivate at 
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