is not only the most economical power for ploughing but it operates with equal economy all the machines and appliances necessary for raising and harvesting crops. These include disk harrows, seeders, drills, packers, binders, etc.

It can be used for hauling grain to the elevator, pulling stumps and hauling all kinds of lumber and supplies to

Fig. 4. The Caravan Needed to Keep a Steam Traction Engine Supplied With Fuel and Water is a Large Item in Operating Costs.

the farm. Most tractors can be used for stationary power and a belt may be run from the pulley provided for the purpose to operate threshers, shellers, shredders, pumps, sawing outfits and any other form of machine needing power. It has sufficient power to run a large number of machines at a time if the main drive is connected to a line shaft which will turn a number of machines in unison.

The gasoline traction engine is assuming increased importance in contracting and road construction work. Operating expenses of a tractor are materially less than when animals are employed because the amount of help needed is reduced to a minimum. One man easily does the work of three or four. The fact that it requires no attention and consumes no fuel when not in use is an advantage not possessed by animal power. Horses must be wintered and for a number of months they are consuming food and giving no useful work in return.

The amount of land that is now given over to cultivation of food for horses and other draft animals could be just as well used in raising the food elements needed by the human race. The tractor consumes nothing that has any definite food value or that can be utilized by the people to better advantage than it is as fuel in producing power.

The tractor knows no seasons and on any farm, work can be found for it at all times. It will pull the ploughs and drills in the spring; in the summer it can be used for making roads and hauling supplies; in the fall it can operate a binder or thresher; in the winter it may be used as power for a sawing outfit, or for running a husker, shredder, or sheller. Between seasons it will do heavy hauling, pump water, cut ensilage, operate grinding mills, haul manure, bale hay and dig ditches. The large range of use to which the average tractor can be adapted and the relatively slight cost for its maintenance cannot fail to impress the economical owners of farms who are conducting them on a business basis and to whom great efficiency and lower cost of production means vastly increased profits.

Economical Aspect of Power Traction.-The

farmer who is just beginning to realize that power traction offers many advantages is desirous of ascertaining just what the average tractor will accomplish for him and at what cost. He is not satisfied to read general claims of desirability, adaptability or economy. He wishes definite figures. He desires to know how much better and how much cheaper the farm tractor can do his work than the same amount can be accomplished with horses and farm hands.

One of the great difficulties of farming on a large scale by old methods exists in the fact that certain work must be accomplished at a definite time. The ploughing, the seeding, harvesting and threshing must all be done during definite periods. This work must be in progress while climatic and weather conditions are right. It is at this time that the capacity and endurance of mechanical power is emphasized and the wonderful superiority of the tractor over horses and farm hands made evident.

The value of early fall ploughing is generally accepted, as under this treatment the weeds are turned under the sod while still green and the decaying vegetable matter forms an invaluable fertilizer. The weeds all bear seed which would sprout in the spring under ordinary circumstances. Ploughing brings these near the surface and as they commence their growth before winter comes the frosts soon put an end to this objectionable vegetable growth. The result is a field free from weeds for the next grain crop.

The agriculturist who uses a tractor for threshing is able to do it as soon as the grain is ready. If this is interrupted by rain the tractor can be utilized for ploughing and under these circumstances many farmers have finished their fall ploughing almost as soon as they have completed their threshing operation.

Another work that requires to be done promptly is harvesting. This is usually done in very hot weather, and both horses and men suffer from working in the excessive heat. If one has a large area under cultivation and no men are available for the harvesting, it will not take much inclement weather to destroy grain of a value greater than that of a tractor that might have harvested the entire crop at the proper time.

A gas tractor not only effects a striking economy but it multiplies the efficiency of every piece of machinery or implement on the farm not operated by human power. No agriculturist, worthy of the name, will question that the self-binder is a great invention, as are also the drill, mowing machine, the disk or toothed harrow and the gang-plough. The development of modern farming is due to all of these implements, yet each is limited in usefulness by the cost of the power required to operate it. Any of these implements attached to the powerful, quickly moving and economically operated gas tractor has a greatly increased value over that possessed when only the more expensive and less efficient horse traction is available. The following figures are given by a prominent tractor manufacturer, the Gas Traction Company, as the average cost under ordinary conditions for the various tasks enumerated.