MOTORS ON FARMS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9469, 11 June 1909, Page 6

MOTORS ON FARMS.

An American exchange, in a recent issue, has the following interesting? paragraph on the introduction of the motor as a farm implement“ln all probability the motor combination' of plough and other farming imple--ments will very soon take the placeof the old type of machinery, and of the farm horse on the plains of Kansas. Through the use of it, ifc is being found that the work can be done ‘in a thirdjof the time, at a fourth of the expense, and better.* Land can be ploughed with this farm motor for 30 cents an acre. Thirty acres can be ploughed in a day with one machine, and 600 bushels of wheat hanled to market at one trip.’ Already the farm machinery of the United States is nearly as expensive as the mannfaotnring machinery, yet, despite the fact that it has pnt oat of business the cradle and the flail, and such tools, it is far less, complete than manu» featuring machinery is. Manufacturing is all done by power—steam, electricity, etc.—bnt farm machinery is still operated, for the moai part, by animals. Sncb machinery as has come to the ( farm has worked wonders. It has revolutionised things. Lincoln said it enabled the women to do the work while the men battled and won in war. Bnt if the imperfect machinery of the farm worked snob results, what will be the result when more perfect machinery comes? In manufacturing the factory system came with the coming of perfected machinery. As it increased and grew bigger the trust system took its place. There ie already evidence that the same process will be followed on the farm. In. the early days each farmer was ‘independenthe and his family did all the work. As machinery, hasincreased the farm hand has come into existence. As machinery becomes more perfect the factory system now in force on the farm will give place to the trust system. Syndicate farming has already come. Ik is possible to corner production on the farm as it was to' corner the weaving of cloth, the curing of meat, the drying and canning of fruit which was once done on the farm. The farmer is not threatened with ' Socialism Caking his farm. The threat is of syndicates using great machinery driving him out of business, just as they drove the small rolling mills out of business. The day of big farming machinery is dawning, and with it the day of syndicate farming aad an end of the little farmer. ’ ’