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Show H oo -- 1 FARMERS WOULD MAKE A MISTAKE. H President Howard ol the Aim-man H Farm Bureau Federation, advises farmers of the United States to make more use of horses and less of irac tors. Instead of spending money for gasoline, he said at n meeting of the J Illinois Agricultural association, "it would be well to use the grain at I home. It will make a better market tor the surplus If this plan Is fol Nothing more harmful io American iiicultural interests ever has been I suggested than this proposal to retreat from the machinery era to the old hand-power, horse-drawn age I Between 1850 and 1910 the number pi American farms increased fourfold; in the same time their value increased tenfold. The principle reason for the increase in the value or the farms lies, of course, in the vast increase of the American crops, which increase is due principally to the general use of the most powerful labor sav ing machinrri Between 1850 and 1910 the value of ag rlcultural machinery increased eight I fold. As the price of agricultural ma chinery' fell rapidly during the period, it follows that the quantity of agrf i cultural machinery used increased far more than eightfold Production per acre increased steadily an the use of machinery rose. I There could be uo surer waj of communing suicide ihan for meii can farmers to follow Howard's ''! vice and discard tractors for horses. Logically it would follow thai if horses .should be used bet .vise iliev consume grain it were betier lo o Bill I farther back and drive oxer, for a yoke of oxeu can do less work per day ihan a teuin of horses, necessitating more oxen than horses and thus further Increasing In-creasing the need for grain xen, too, would demand more man power, which In i urn would increase the de-maud de-maud toi human food, thus giving "a better market for the surplus." as ! Howard suggest. This carried t III further would sug-gen sug-gen I the abandonment m all farm ma! rchinery, going back to the sickle, and j t he hand thresher, enormously in 'creasing the demand for manpower; and the accompanying demand ior, food. If other American industries accept i ed Howard's ndviee and discarded ma-j cninery oecause macnines uon t wear shoes, nor clothes, nor eat wheat, j where would 1 his country he ten years' hence" It is true that tractors curtail grain' consumption. But it is also true that ; they increase grain production. What is uue of tractors Is true of all farm I machinery; they are in the same boat, I none of them eat grain But because the American farmer now uses th--i tractor, the modern reaper, thiesber. i 'planter, and other farm machinery he Ji? miles and miles ahead of his greal- great grandfather. |