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Show Toehold onTrouble (5 A gashed foot, sooner or later, is the Inevitable result of steadying a block of wood with your foot when chopping. by saying that early reports coming com-ing into the National Safety council from many of the 300 organizations which cooperated in arranging National Na-tional Farm Safety week activities In 48 states in 1944 Indicate an even more successful week this year. Lifetime of the implement has j long been a yardstick whereby faxm machinery care is measured. But there is a far more Important and better measurement the lifetime of the farmer. And that's where the farm safety program, with its emphasis em-phasis upon the relationship of the human factor to the life span ot farm folks, comes in. With this in mind, manufacturers of farm equipment are doing a useful use-ful job ot urging users to take extra care in handling implements, tractors, trac-tors, or other farm machines. When the tractor, for Instance, was new and its friends so freely and correctly forecast the approach of power farming, it stirred critics who ranged from mild to bitter. To catalog the criticisms would be an endless and unprofitable task; but that's all out of the book of "Genesis" "Gene-sis" of power farming. It was soon proved, again and again, that a tractor trac-tor produced under good engineering and manufacturing auspices would stand up to the job for which it was designed. Tractors kept getting better bet-ter and better. Their betterment continues. Maintenance is a big element In such confidence. Long ago the stronger retail implement dealers assembled good mechanics and organized or-ganized their shop-service departments. depart-ments. Many sent apprentices, and senior mechanics as well, to tractor factory schools. Farm Safety Plan. In the meantime, the farmer himself him-self has Improved as his own service serv-ice man. Many young farmers have grown up in the new age of power farming and qualify as professional power farmers. And today's farmer knows he can go to the shop of some dealer for repair and overhaul work that the farmer is not equipped to do. Factory management, by the way, fought the battle of safety with shields over moving parts wherever these might menace workmen with shields and plenty of special training ot foremen and workers In the technique tech-nique of safety. This battle goes on now with never a sign of letup. Factory Fac-tory men treat safety as one of their major concerns. An unshielded machine ma-chine is a rarity in any well-run plant To make life and limb safer for those who work with farm machinery, machin-ery, the farm machinery manufacturers manufac-turers have developed and put into effect protective shields for tractor and pull-type power drive implements; imple-ments; power line and power take' off shields so designed that the shield for any make ot implement may be attached to the master shield bracket brack-et ot any make of farm tractor. Now the power line shield for any make or model ot implement built to the standard could be connected to the master shield on any make or model of tractor. A good job, well donel But what about the thousands thou-sands of Implements and tractors already al-ready In the hands of the farmer? Isn't safety Important to them too? It is, and soon provision was made to make available conversion packages pack-ages for old Implements so they could be adapted for use with new tractors, and old tractors converted to the standard so that new implements imple-ments could be used with them. In every way possible, farmers are urged to use these shields; never to operate a machine without them. Conspicuous precautionary signs are posted on danger spots throughout Implement and tractor alike. Certain parts of any machinery must be regarded as functional elements ele-ments and cannot be completely shielded and still perform their job; but even here we do have one real safeguard: "Man can think before he acts." |