American Agriculturist, November 10,1923 
331 
Saving on Gas, Oil and Tires 
And How To Keep the Car From 
T HE best way to keep down the gaso¬ 
line consumption of your automo¬ 
bile is to sell it. Then, so far as you 
are concerned, expense for gasoline will 
cease. If, however, you are not will¬ 
ing to do this, the advice following may 
be of some benefit. 
The miles per gallon of gasoline de¬ 
pend upon the car, the motor, the 
driver, the gasoline, and several other 
things. The most important factors 
which determine the amount of power 
required to move a car along are fric¬ 
tion and wind resistance. 
Every moving part of the car en¬ 
counters friction as it functions— 
motor, transmission, propeller shaft, 
gears, rear axle, wheels, tires, and 
bearings. 
The type of these parts mentioned 
you cannot change, but you can see 
that they are properly adjusted and 
lubricated. There are many cars now 
in use, the gasoline consumption of 
which could be very much reduced by 
using lighter-bodied lubricants. You 
will avoid friction by using lubricants 
as thin as can be done and yet ade¬ 
quately protect the bearings. Before 
changing lubricants, clean out thor¬ 
oughly all old oil and grease from 
working parts. 
Do not neglect the brake and trans¬ 
mission bands. These should be abso¬ 
lutely clear of their contact surfaces 
so that road shocks will not disarrange 
their positions and permit them to 
touch or drag when their retarding 
power is not needed. Experts also in¬ 
sist that tires be inflated to capacity. 
Wind resistance is also an important 
item in the mileage made with a car. 
Little can be done to reduce this with¬ 
out the sacrifice of comfort, but when 
driving can be done with the top down 
and the windshield open, the consump¬ 
tion of gasoline can be materially re¬ 
duced. When the top is up, it acts 
as a huge scoop, pocketing the wind. 
Avoid Engine .Leaks 
It is hardly necessary to say that the 
motor should be in perfect condition. 
The most important factor in the op¬ 
eration of motors is compression. This 
can be tested by using the hand crank 
and rocking on the compression of 
cylinders, one at a time. If the com¬ 
pression is good, as it should be, the 
compressed air cushion at the top of 
the cylinder should be maintained al¬ 
most indefinitely. This means that the 
air can be compressed by turning the 
crank a little way and then allowing 
it to expand again, when the pressure 
is taken off the crank, and this rock¬ 
ing process repeated without any ap¬ 
parent change in resistance for several 
minutes. Almost always, unless cars 
have been used a great whiles trouble 
comes from leaky valves, and may be 
remedied by grinding, if pitted, or by 
replacement if badly scarred or warped. 
Spark plug and pet cocks are a 
source of small compression leaks, 
which may be readily detected by 
squirting oil around the threads while 
the motor is in operation. Where there 
is air escaping, small bubbles will be 
seen. 
In regard to the carburetor, it is 
taken for granted that the adjustment 
must be the best obtainable. Usually 
the carburetor is adjusted as lean as 
possible and yet so the motor will pull 
with the throttle wide open at speeds 
between four and six miles and twenty- 
five to thirty miles per hour. 
Gasoline will also be saved by coast¬ 
ing wherever this is possible, stopping 
the motor and disengaging the gears 
on long “glides.”—P. T. Hines. 
GOOD OIL IS CHEAPEST 
I 
Many a man has been surprised to 
be told that he saws his whiskers off. 
Yet this is exactly what he does when 
he shaves. Examination of the edge 
of a well-sharpened razor blade under 
the miscroscope shows not a smooth 
edge as was once supposed, but a series 
of more or less regular teeth. This 
saw-tooth edge is the junction between 
the two surfaces of the blade and can¬ 
not be avoided. 
If this is the condition on a highly- 
polished razor blade, what enormous 
hills and valleys must one expect to 
find on the surface of the ordinary pol¬ 
ished bearings used in machinery and 
motors. These rough surfaces, rubbing 
together, produce friction which re¬ 
duces the efficiency of any machine. 
Roller or ball bearings overcome fric¬ 
tion to a considerable extent, but there 
are places where they cannot be used. 
In these cases oil takes their place. 
Oil actually works very much like ball 
bearings, the two sliding surfaces roll¬ 
ing over little globules of oil. Just as 
in the case of ball bearings, the little 
globules of oil finally become so chipped 
that they no longer roll easily. When 
this time comes it must be renewed. 
Oil that has become black from use 
retains but a very small percentage of 
lubricating qualities. 
The best grades of oil are most re¬ 
sistant to the destructive agents—heat, 
friction and wear. These three cause 
oil to deteriorate. For most uses a 
cheap oil is in the end more costly than 
a good grade of oil. Even the best 
grade must be occasionally replaced. 
It never pays to use a poor grade 
of oil for any purpose whatever.— 
W. E. F. _ 
oils AND GREASE DESTROY 
RUBBER 
Many a good tire has gone on an 
untimely trip to the junk pile simply 
because the owner of the car to which 
it has been attached did not know 
that gasoline, oil and grease are the 
natural enemies of rubber. They will 
cause the best tires to decay and dis¬ 
integrate rapidly. 
Very often cars throwing grease 
from the rear axle, covering the inner 
side of the wheel and tire with black 
grease. This is due to the fact that 
the packing washer in the drum of the 
wheel has worn out and the grease 
from the bearings is passing into the 
drum. The centrifugal action caused 
by the wheels turning tends to throw 
it out, thus covering the wheel. The 
grease that covers the tire in this way 
is very detrimental to the rubber. It 
is not long before the inner side of the 
casing becomes badly rotted. Natural¬ 
ly this results in early destruction of 
the casing. As soon as grease is ob¬ 
served on the tire, it is a matter of 
saving money to have the packing in¬ 
side the wheel renewed. Otherwise it 
would soon mean a new pair of rear 
tires. 
AVOIDING TIRE LOSSES 
E. D. HENRY 
A great many farm trucks are 
equipped with the older type fabric 
pneumatic tire, hence the owner can 
diagnose the. trouble when one fails 
prematurely is in position to save him¬ 
self money. He can also avoid the loss 
certain to follow when an unscrupulous 
repairman advises the repair of a tire 
that is too badly injured or has not 
enough wear left in it to justify the 
cost of repairs. 
Careful and frequent inspection of 
tires for cuts and injuries will add 
many miles to their useful lives, though 
there are some injuries such as stone 
bruises or other injuries to the fabric 
that no external examination will dis¬ 
cover, therefore whenever a tire is 
taken off for any cause it is a good 
plan to inspect its interior for .weak 
or damaged spots. When a tire has 
given a comfortable mileage and is still 
apparently good for many more, it is 
a good plan to take it off and examine 
its interior. Quite frequently the fab¬ 
ric will show evidence of hard wear 
and then the installation of a reliner 
will give the added mileage you had 
expected from the appearance of the 
tire’s outside and which you would not 
have gotten otherwise. 
Rim-cutting, a common cause of fail¬ 
ure, is not always caused by running 
the tire flat or partly inflated as many 
suppose, nor is this trouble always 
easy to detect. It is seldom found in 
straight side or the larger size QD 
tires, but the Ford sizes and up to 
31 x 4 clinchers very easily rim-cut. 
Nor is rim-cutting always the fault 
of the driver. A clincher tire kept 
properly inflated on a perfect-fitting 
Skidding 
rim will not rim-cut, but one of the 
chief causes of rim-cutting is bent 
rims. Once we know that a clincher 
rim bent only 1/64 of an inch will 
cause a tire rim-cut even if kept prop¬ 
erly inflated, we can readily under¬ 
stand that where rim-cutting exists the 
rim should be examined and if it re¬ 
quires it, carefully straightened before 
another tire is put on. Sometimes a 
tire will appear rim-cut when it is 
not. It may be only the chafing strip 
is injured or has loosened. This strip 
is to protect the body of the tire from 
chafing, though some tires do not 
have it. 
Sometimes lumps or boils appear on 
a tire, and these should be opened at 
a point farthest from the treacl or as 
far up the side of the tire as possible. 
If they contain sand, it indicates a 
hole in the tread somewhere where the 
sand worked through. This hole should 
be located, the sand removed, and both 
holes then carefully sealed shut with 
cement and tire putty. Should the boil 
be filled with pulverized rubber it is 
an indication that the tire is defective 
or has been run under-inflated for some 
time. If there is only one boil or blis¬ 
ter, it should be treated as advised for 
a sand blister. If the blisters appear 
quite general all over the tire, usually 
it is foolish to attempt repairs. Blis¬ 
ters may also indicate either tread or 
fabric separation, and when this oc¬ 
curs, as a rule that tire is past profit¬ 
able repair. 
Injuries to the inside of a tire are, 
as a rule, plainly apparent on inspec¬ 
tion. The fabric will be seen to have 
a roughened or broken appearance. 
Breaks confined to one spot or section 
can frequently be repaired profitably, 
but where the breaks show up in a 
number of places or are distributed 
quite generally around the tire as in 
rim-cutting, the tire had better be 
discarded. 
It pays the tire owner to know when 
it will pay him to have a tire repaired 
and not leave it to the repairman, 
whose judgment may be warped by his 
desire for a job. 
HOW TO KEEP THE AUTO FROM 
SKIDDING 
W. E. FARVER 
Recently an acquaintance of mine 
was killed nearby, by his car skid¬ 
ding, turning turtle and pinning 
him fast underneath. This dreadful 
accident leads me to offer a few hints 
on how to prevent skidding. 
If the driver always knew when a 
car was going to skid he could pre¬ 
vent all skidding. Skidding is such a 
sudden occurrence that unless the 
driver does mighty quick thinking and 
some acting automatically, there will 
be little done to prevent it in most 
cases. This means being prepared for 
any emergency by knowing what is 
best to do. 
The first thing any driver can do to 
prevent skidding is to drive SLOWLY 
when on wet, slippery roads or on slip¬ 
pery and icy pavements and improved 
roads. It is well to stay out of tight 
places or to drive close to other cars 
where the brakes may be needed to stop 
or the steering apparatus used to make 
a quick turn. Either of these induce 
skidding. 
When signs of skidding are noticed 
the first thing to do is to release the 
clutch immediately. This done, the car 
often rights itself. Brakes should be 
applied only when the car is in a 
straight position. When releasing the 
clutch, steer the front of car in the 
same direction as rear of the car is 
skidding. This procedure helps to at¬ 
tain a straight course and aids in ap¬ 
plying the brakes with safety, often 
preventing a serious accident. A few 
principles of safety applied properly 
will prevent many serious accidents. 
Thanking you for your published ar¬ 
ticle of information in regard to posting 
farm land, also for your very liberal 
offer of furnishing the signs and your 
cooperation in the whole matter. Best 
wishes to the American Agriculturist. 
—Fred Hannond, Tioga County, N. Y. 
How Would You 
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sure they’d never do it again? _ 
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CATTLE BREEDERS 
DO YOU WANT 
to add some new HOLSTEIN blood to your registered 
herd, or do you want to introduce some into a good 
grade herd? 
The Veterans' Mountain Camp offers you this chance. 
We have on hand eight young bulls, from one to seven 
months of age, carrying the best blood of the Seels - 
Burke and Vale strains. All direct sons of De Kol Webb 
Pontiac. Sold with or without papers. 
No reasonable offers refused as this stock must be 
disposed of at once. Write or wire 
VETERANS’ MOUNTAIN CAMP, HORSESHOE, N. Y. 
HOLSTEINS AND GUERNSEYS 
Fresh cows and springers, 100 head of the finest 
quality to select from. Address 
A. F. SAUNDERS, CORTLAND, N. Y. 
HOLSTEINS 
2 Car loads high-class grade springers. 50 Grade 
Heifers, 2 and 3 years old. 60 Head Registered 
Cattle. Write your wants. 
J. A. LEACH CORTLAND, N. Y. 
SWINE BREEDERS 
PIGS FOR SALE 
Chester White and Yorkshire Crossed and Chester 
and Berkshire Crossed Pigs, 6 to 7 weeks old, f4 
each, and 7 to 8 weeks old. $4.50. I have 20 Pure 
Black Berkshires, 7 to 8 weeks old,$5 each, Boars 
$7 each. Pure Chester White Pigs. 7 to 8 weeks old. 
$5 each, Boars $7 each. Will ship from 1 to 100 to 
your approval C.O.D. 
WALTER LUX, 388 Salem St., WOBURN, MASS. 
PIGS, all ages, not akin to boars. 
Many outof famousWickware breeding. 
Some nice Gilts and Boars, Bred Sows and Gilts. Reg¬ 
istered Free. Special Prices. 
ROY J. FREET, R. F. D. 4, A. A., Shippensbnrg, Pa. 
PEDIGREED HAMPSHIRES lureWefie" 8 
$6 to $8 each. HUGH BRINTON, West Chester, Pa. 
«» - ■ ---ojooujines, rigs, each 
Prepaid. _ GEO. F. G RIFFIE, R. 3 , NEWVILLE, PA. 
CHOICE O. I. C. PIGS 5™ .*£ 
old. Boars and sows for breeding purposes, $6 each 
including registration papers; $5 without papers. 
CHAS. E. HARRIS & SON, Middlebury, Vt. 
RFfllSTFRFH 0 I f AND che ster white pioi. 
nL.uiJiL.nu/ u. i. u K . p. rogerh, watville, a. t. 
LARGE BERKSHIRES AT HIGHWOOD 
Grand champion breeding. Largest herd In America. Free booklet 
HARPENDING Box 10 DUNDEE, H.Y. 
BABY CHICKS 
1000 PULLETS FOR SALE 
Vigorous, well grown, trap-nested stock. 
Sold in quantities of 25 or over. Prices 
low. Order at once to get best selections. 
April and May hatched $1.85 to $2.50 each. 
QUEENSBURY FARMS 
765 N. Main Street 
Torn* River, N. J. 
?i a L?* OC t handsome. Heavy Laying Stock 
SI .50 each. Lota of 100 or more $1 36 . Brown Lag 
horn Pullets $1 26 . White Leghorn Pullets SI. 25 each 
Inspection Invited. Registered Airdale Pupa S 26 . 
‘HUMMER’S POULTRY FARM 
FRENCHTOWN, N. J., R. i 
I ARfiF STOfJf fine Poultry, Turkeys, Geese,Ducks,Gaiueaa, 
ijrtltVJL OluUV Bantams, Collies, Pigeons, Chicks, Stock, 
Eggs, low; catalog. PIONEER FARMS, Telford, Pennsylvania! 
3 lk RED and BARRED ROCK PULLETS, 40c. lb.; 4 lb. 48c 
* R»f BLODGETT, BRISTOL, VT. 
