AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 73, 16 September 1911, Page 10

AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS.

A picture of the immensity of the Canadian field for agriculture is drawn by a Manitoba correspondent of the London Times. In the Canadian West there are, he states, 357,000,000 acres of land known to be capable of producing wheat and other cereals. l'"ive years ago less than ,">,000,000 acres had been sown with wheat, and the total cultivated land for all purposes did not exceed 10,000.000 acres. This season (l!)l'l). 10,200,000 acres have been sown with wheat, 4,078,000 with oats, U50.000 with barley, and 751,822 acres with Jlax —a total in grain crops alone of ]<5.779.822 acres.

The increase in production bids fair to be more rapid in the coming five years than it lms been in the past, 011 account of ihe extensive use of agricultural traetors. During the spring of 15)11 over .diOO.OOO worth of tractors, representing over 14.000 horse-power, were shipped from Winnipeg to prairie farms. The average gasolene tractor can break from ■2.) to ISO acres of virgin soil per day. at an average cost, for gasolene or pctro! ol Is (id per acre. One of these tractors can plough stubble laud at an average rate <.f 40 acres a day. There are literals millions of acres which these tractors may be put. to work without any preliminary preparation. The use of tractors has made possible the cultivation of the large farm—that is. the farm running from IO.ttOO t.o .10.000 acres. Farms of this size were not profitable when the fanner had to depend wholly 011 horse power for his operations. It is the possibility of successfully using engines capable of turning 10 or 1-2 furrows of virgin prairie soil that has made larger developments possible in Canada, lit spite of the intlux of settlers. farm labor is ahvnvs (lillicult to obtain, and is costly, while one of the drawbacks under which farmers have labored in the past, has been the dillicultv of securing men who could be trusted to look after valuable horses. All engine which will plough 40 acres a day can be operated with less than half the men required to look after the horses necessary to plough 20 acres in a day. Under these conditions, many predict that the wheat production of the Canadian West will even perhaps be doubled in the next three years.