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Show Planning Rural Utopia on Farm University Experts Seek Era of More Comfort, Less Perspiration. COLUMBUS, OHIO. Agricultural engineers at Ohio State university are busy thinking up new ways to help the farmer do his work with more comfort and less perspiration, says the United Press. They have already developed a "milking parlor" that saves stanchion stan-chion room in dairy barns and keeps the cows moving in double file past a milking machine. They get their feed at the same time, thus greatly great-ly simplifying that job for the farmer. farm-er. The engineers are working on a gadget that at the touch of a button but-ton scoops manure from the trough behind the stanchions and dumps Jt Into the fertilizer spreader. New Cotton Picker. Farm machinery companies also have their plans, some of them still "top secret." International Harvester now has in production a cotton-picker that may revolutionize cotton farming In the south; a one-man pickup baler that rakes up cured hay in th fields and kicks out bales as it goes along; and a self-propellor combine that applies the once-over-lightly principle princi-ple to wheat harvesting. I-H also has a new vest-pocket tractor for farms of less than 40 acres that comes equipped with a specially designed line of implements. imple-ments. The Oliver corporation claims its new plow "solves the problem of deep plowing." They say the new plow will plow to a depth of 12 inches without turning over the hard pan of the substrata. Comfort on Tractor. Oliver also has a new-type tractor trac-tor that moves on rubber tracks. It's good for use on muck farms or on farms that are hilly or have loose soil. The rubber tracks permit its use on highways. Another device recently demon-j demon-j strated was a "cut-off corn harvester" harvest-er" that cuts the stalks, snaps them off and husks the ears, delivering them to the wagon; then shreds the stalks and distributes them over the ground. Prompt disposal of the stalks in this manner cuts down corn borers by 95 per cent, it is reported. One manufacturer with an eye for comfort has mounted his tractor seat on hydraulic shock absorbers The one the farmers are really going for is the home freezing unit. Dr. Glen R. McCuen, head of the Ohio state agricultural engineering department, warns that manufacturer manufac-turer cannot keep up with the demand de-mand for freezing units. "This will represent an opportunity oppor-tunity for the fly-by-night manufacturer," manufac-turer," Dr. McCuen warned. "It looks as though the disreputable home freezer salesman will be the next to victimize the farmers on a grand scale." |