The old threshing horsepower has been superseded by steam engines and gasoline and kerosene power, but horses are more important than ever.
Figure 109.—Horse Power, showing the manner of attaching the braced lever to the bull wheel.
Farm horses are larger and more powerful; they are better kept, better trained, and hitched to better machinery, because it pays. One man drives three 1,600-pound draft horses as fast as he used to drive two 1,000-pound general-purpose horses. The three drafters make play of a heavy load, while the two light horses worry themselves poor and accomplish little. Modern farm machinery is heavier, it cuts wider and digs deeper and does more thorough work. Modern farm requirements go scientifically into the proper cultivation and preparation of soil to increase fertility. Old methods used up fertility until the land refused to produce profitably.
Although the old familiar horsepower has been greatly outclassed, it has not been discarded. There are many small horsepowers in use for elevating grain, baling hay, cutting straw for feed and bedding, grinding feed and other light work where engine power is not available.
WATER-POWER
Water-power is the most satisfactory of all kinds of stationary farm power, when a steady stream of water may be harnessed to a good water-wheel. It is not a difficult engineering feat to throw a dam across a small stream and take the water out into a penstock to supply water to a turbine water-wheel. In the first place it is necessary to measure the flow of water to determine the size of water-wheel which may be used to advantage. In connection with the flow of water it is also important to know the fall. Water is measured by what is termed a “weir.” It is easily made by cutting an oblong notch in a plank placed across the stream, as a temporary dam which raises the water a few inches to get a steady, even flow of water through the notch so that calculations may be made in miner’s inches. The term “miner’s inch” is not accurate, but it comes near enough for practical purposes. Measuring the volume of water should be done during a dry time in summer.
The fall of the stream is easily measured by means of a carpenter’s level and a stake. The stake is driven into the ground at a point downstream where water may be delivered to the wheel and a tailrace established to the best advantage. Sighting over the level to a mark on the stake will show the amount of fall. When a manufacturer of water-wheels has the amount of water and the fall, he can estimate the size and character of wheel to supply. The penstock may be vertical or placed on a slant. A galvanized pipe sufficient to carry the necessary amount of water may be laid along the bank, but it should be thoroughly well supported because a pipe full of water is heavy, and settling is likely to break a joint.
Galvanized piping for a farm penstock is not necessarily expensive. It may be made at any tin shop and put together on the ground in sections. The only difficult part about it is soldering the under side of the joints, but generally it may be rolled a little to one side until the bottom of the seam is reached.