ELECTRICAL FARMING MACHINERY
In France, Germany, Austria, and the United States the electric motor has been turned to agricultural uses. Where water-power is available it is peculiarly suitable for stationary work, such as threshing, chaff-cutting, root-slicing, grinding, etc. The current can be easily distributed all over a large farm and harnessed to portable motors. Even ploughing has been done with electricity: the energy being derived either from a steam-engine placed near by, or from an overhead supply passing to the plough through trolley arms similar to those used on electric trams.
The great advances made recently in electrical power transmission, and in the efficiency of the electric motor, bring the day in sight when on large properties the fields will be girt about by cables and poles as permanent fixtures. All the usual agricultural operations of ploughing, drilling, and reaping will then be independent of horses, or of steam-engines panting laboriously on the headlands. In fact, the experiment has been tried with success in the United States. Whichever way we look, Giant Steam is bowing before a superior power.
FOOTNOTES:
[24.] Cassier's Magazine.
[25.] The World's Work, vol. iii. 499.
[CHAPTER XXV]
DAIRY MACHINERY
MILKING MACHINES — CREAM SEPARATORS — A MACHINE FOR DRYING MILK