THE GASOLENE FARM 
And the Really Big Work on It Which 
the Automobile is Doing Today 
Photographs by Brown Bros. 
An Essential Necessity 
Summed up briefly, the position of the 
motor car on the farm has changed during 
the last few years from that of a luxury 
to that of an essential necessity. Just as 
the progressive farmer has had to utilize 
telephone service or see his share of local 
sales captured by his neighbor who did, or 
find that he was losing the best parts of his 
possible profits by not being able to keep in 
touch with the market, so competition is 
making a necessity of automobile transpor¬ 
tation, particularly for perishable products, 
frequent deliveries and long hauls. Several 
large concerns are now laying their plans 
on the assumption that eventually practical¬ 
ly every farmer will have a car. 
T WO of the most important phases of 
rural development during the last 
decade or so have been the increase in size 
of the “small” farm, and the increase, in 
many sections of the country, of the num¬ 
ber of small “farms” which are used as 
dwelling places and run as side issues to 
some other profession or occupation of the 
owner. Although these two conditions seem 
somewhat paradoxical at first glance, they 
are not so in reality; the first illustrates 
the fact which hundreds of government in¬ 
vestigations have proved to be true, namely, 
that the large farm as a business proposi¬ 
tion is superior to the small farm ; and the 
second the equally important fact that the 
professional, business or skilled workman 
who can use his spare hours during the 
summer season to produce a large part of 
his food supply possesses the equivalent of 
a very substantial increase in salary. 
Just what all this has to do with the com¬ 
ing of the automobile to the farm may not 
at first be apparent, but there is a very in¬ 
timate connection in both cases. It is a 
connection much deeper and also much 
less spectacular than commonly supposed. 
Everyone has seen pictures of the practi¬ 
cal, low-priced car backed up to the wood 
pile, sawing wood, or hitched by some clever 
arrangement to a mowing-machine, with 
comments on what the automobile is being 
made to do on the farm. But the really 
big work which the motor car is doing for 
the farm does not so lend itself to striking 
pictures. It has passed the unique stage. 
The Real Work of the Farm Car 
To anyone who has been in close touch 
with the practical side of country life, how¬ 
ever, it must have forcibly presented it¬ 
Not only has the automobile lightened the actual labor of farm life; it has made 'possible 
the marketing of produce in from one-fifth to one-lialf of the time formerly required 
self. Marketing of products in one-fifth 
to one-half the time formerly required; a 
much greater range of markets available; 
rapid transit for the manager or supervisor 
of work on the big farm or the “chain” 
farm; mobility of labor and materials; the 
saving of time formerly wasted in getting 
to and from work for the spare time small 
farmer—these are the things of tremendous 
importance which the automobile is doing 
for the farm, so far as the economic side 
of the question is concerned. One hears 
and sees little about them; but in the end 
they will prove of hardly less influence than 
the development of the steam locomotive. 
They are quietly but rapidly changing the 
whole status of a large part of American 
agricultural life. 
Important as the economic aspects are, 
or may become, however, it is doubtful if 
they outweigh the tremendous social advan¬ 
tages which the popular priced car is bring¬ 
ing, and has in many sections already largely 
brought, to farm dwellers, both those who 
dwell for a living and those who want but 
a home in the fresh air and an occasional 
fresh salad. You will probably have a 
chance, some time this month or next, to 
attend a country fair. Just glance observ- 
ingly over the arrays of autos you will see 
there, of all kinds, colors, calibers and previ¬ 
ous conditions of servitude. But each one 
means that for its owner, at least, the great¬ 
est bugbear, drawback and obstacle to real 
country life— isolation —has been to a very 
great extent removed. The auto is com¬ 
pleting the function of the telephone in 
bringing civilization out to the soil, and 
making possible that intercommunication 
without which efficient rural organization 
would be an impossible task. 
To the farmer with a car, distances up 
to five or six miles are within as easy range 
as one to two miles formerly were by horse 
travel. The rural church, the school, the 
grange, the institute, the field demonstra¬ 
tion, fairs and exhibits, visits to well-man¬ 
aged farms, buying and selling organiza¬ 
tions—all these agencies for better farming 
and happier living are not only made more 
accessible, but they themselves can be great¬ 
ly improved because serving so much larger 
units of territory and consequently being 
able to command the services of much 
higher priced and more skilled men. 
The modern dairy farmer straps his milk cans on the back of his car and makes the 
six-mile trip to the railroad or milk depot comfortably , returning much earlier than in 
the horse days 
