Show L E ITY for or light ing and pow er Is rapidly advancing in the favor of the american 4 f a r m e r whether he be one of those adaven I 1 in n d I 1 visuals who stake their all al on the prospect of developing a paying farm in the arid districts of the west and southwest or in the swamp lands of the south or whether he be of the class that is turn ing frig its attention to the great rewards of truck and dairy farming in the east the modern farmer has caught the scientific spirit of the time and is getting practical results from his realization of the tact fact that methods must accommodate themselves to changing conditions at the annual convention of the american institute of electrical engineers held recently in boston the electrical farm was considered in a paper by putnam A bates he ile discussed in some detail the work now being done by farm era ers who are developing the arid and districts of the west showing that irrigation and electricity are the two factors that promise most for the future nat ral conditions are for the most pa pan against the farmer irrigation came firt and then the advantages of electric power pomer pumping were realized the so called electrical farm has been in existence for a dozen years or more but it is only recently that there has been an organ iced effort to disseminate knowledge on the ucal use of electricity in agriculture referring to the southwest and to the elec tr c farm as he found it there mr bates dates says in some sections of that wonderfully fertile country well mell protected by the high mountain range ranges practically every farm la Is an electric farm ahta la Is to say the buildings are lighted by electricity and many of the laborious opera eions are accomplished itcy y the use of electric power these really were our first electric farms the period of their establishment corr corresponding with the development of the water powers of of the ene t wl 4 1 ta 7 ar 4 4 arri x aw ak 41 nr 4 bearby mounta na ns oraa on the majority of bese these farms irrigation Is practiced and quite 18 1 naturally electricity was first made ad use of tor for pumping purposes then under the operate 8 of progressive local al central station I 1 operators operators it was almost universally adopted for I 1 can ji recall B seeing electric electr lc lights and d the electric elect 1 flatiron fl ln in use in the tarm farm homi on the pacific coast eleven years ago the people were content 61 to enjoy the jad vantages which these S I 1 improvements m oi made possible to them but did riot seem to regard w their conditions as unusual al estt their fara were in fact electric farms and d their r dependent upon the produce of the abed land S a bars by were electricity as they are dow now practically au all oper A brief summary ot of the work accod pitched shows that construction is under nay ay or has been completed on twentynine twenty nine projects in evolving an expenditure of 65 in the eight ta ears ot of actual ork there have been dug miles of canals 13 and more than nineteen eteen niles rilles of tunnels mostly excavated through mountains the total excavation of rock and earth amounts to 77 cubic yards there have been built miles of roads 1 00 1 lies ties of telephones and there are now in operation 25 miles of transmission lines over which sur pus plus power and light are furnished to several cities end nd towns the small farms and villages about these developments developments give the effect of suburban rather vj than rural dilons conditions dt lons the cheap power developed from the great dams or from numer ai is s drops in the main canals Is now utilized for the e T operation ot of trolley lines which reach ait oit it into rural districts bringing the farmer in closer touch 0 with the city it rune runs numerous industrial 1 plants ants tot for arf storing handling and man i rac fac turing he the raw products of the farm the same power Is used for lighting and heating in the towns and for cooking in the homes on several of the projects the farmers are applying for electrical power and in many farm hou houses e poses electric electric power is utilized for many domestic pur more than a million dollars has been invest ed in the development of power on the salt niver river project of which the farmers have volun harily raised the sale of the up to 0 the beginning 18 ot of the present year amounted lt to with the plant only P partially con strutted ted this revenue will contribute material ly toward lessening the cost of operating tte the arri gation system on a large milk farm at Plain plainsboro N J electricity Is used for lighting clipping cows operating a bottling machine spinning on tin roll foil caps or seals on bottles cutting ensilage runn frig a sawmill pumping from a deep well grinding feed and elevating it to storage bins the 0 fact that this Is 13 a commercial mercial plant turning out dally daily from 3 to 4 quarts of anik where an exceptionally high standard of 1 V c in on to i 4 9 51 d WP W P 11 PA P A kl chiv P W e V e 1 ae 8 1 ro 10 1 t f a C lyhs aa quality is rigidly maintained ia Is evidence that there must be advantages Tn 11 ln in using electricity escat in such an installation m the ta cotil acreage of the farm Is nearly 1200 1 1 90 and at present about 70 per cent Is to under cultivation electricity Is generated by steam power and distributed at volts the gener abing a equipment at present consists of one on aa 2 kf kilowatt direct connected unit steam boiler etc this Is not a large generating plant to be sure bit b it t it insures cleanliness of lighting equipment and safety from lire risk in the barns bunk houses and outbuildings it also makes possible a conven ent source of power in any part of the farms or outbuildings which of nee etsity are widely distributed and cost of gen crating the current including interest and depreciation charges is probably not over four cents a kilowatt hour scientific milk production Is more and more orr coming 11 into prominence and the necessity for ernect perfect cleanliness cliness nl iness immediate cooling and keeping 1 the milk 1 at a low lature temperature compels uch such li dairy i farmers f to adopt devices de that will be most helpful p in obtaining these results there Is s a milk dairy in morriston Mor risto n N J where the tile wall cell and floors of all rooms in n which h en the milk Is handled are cashed down daily both morning and evening the electric lighting fix tures being entirely water tight ans diering and stock raising are usually ally fol low owed 0 na we where land needs ig in 1 fertility and in either the silo Is a necessity cutting up succulent forage crops and storing them in the nia silo for later use se being the accepted apted method of preparing the feed to do this the farmer must have oj power but a ten horsepower electric mo L for with its i capacity tor for momentary overload d will S 1 do 0 the work 7 that t would stall eta a gasoline gasa n glie gire r rated at twelve to fifteen horsepower the farmer can easily reca recognize the addan tage of the electric motor tor for this operation and when once adopted he soon ants to use the current for grinding feed baling hay and other purposes on the dairy farm however electricity nf of fers other opportunities as it is the tu mt most con form orm of energy for operating an artiff cial achl refrigeration fv 0 ilant plant the cream separator churn and butter worker cream separators while often turned by hand on small dairy farms are more frequently driven mechanically here where considerable cream 1 Is handled except in the very large sizes they not no more than a on fifth horsepower mo tor for and they are in oper operation atlon only for a corn com ively short time the operating cost therefore Is practically negligible there are in use many designs of electric especially on dairy farms where there Is a great deal of milking to be done and hand are not available in sufficient numbers likewise siv to electricity ls Is now being used exten e alively for cooling and aerating and the ic ice making electrical deace del ice Is not unknown to our G r ai pa bazl Z az cw mor e progressive farmers the up to date farmer la Is very much aware of the fact that the regular grooming of cows increases the supply of milk and counts strongly tor for c cleanliness leania li ness he now w has an electrical d device e tor for d cenno doing t this his one ot of the most interest interesting ing elec devices on the modern farm I 1 Is s the telephone in the old days the men an and d wo women men were called from the fields for dinner by tae the blowing of 0 a horn or by sending the small boy trudging across the field with the good news the modern farmer farmers men take to the fields with them a tele phone which can be rigged up near chere they are working and receive messages from the house by that means with the installation of these elec devices much of the romantic side ot of life on the farm P passes asses away even a modern poet would have a hard time getting anything lyrical out of an ail electrical and the beauty of a load of hay somehow fades when a motor truck goes chugging across the fields with it but the american farmer ceased to be romantic when hen the took the place of the wheezy old organ and wh when en his wife opened up that front parlor that always used to be such a sombre place he Is out to make money now a and nd electrical machinery opens up a aay vay tor for him to do it when ho be fe feels els like it now he gete gets into his automobile and goe goes s elsewhere to find what will appeal to his idea of the romantic |