Figure 129.—Electric Power Plant. A practical farm generator and storage battery, making a complete farm electric plant that will develop and store electricity for instant use in any or all of the farm buildings.
Refrigeration is a profitable way to use electric power. There are small automatic refrigerator machines that maintain low temperatures to preserve food products. This branch of the work may be made profitable. Laundry work on the farm was principally hand labor until the small power washers and wringers were invented. Now a small electric motor takes the blue out of Monday, and the women wear smiles. Electric flatirons afford the greatest comfort on Tuesday. The proper heat is maintained continually until the last piece is ironed. Cooking by electricity is another great success. Some women buy separate cooking utensils, such as toasters, chafing dishes and coffee percolators. Others invest in a regular electric cooking range at a cost of fifty dollars and feel that the money was well spent. It takes about 100 K.W.H. per month in hot weather to cook by electricity for a family of four. In winter, when heat is more of a luxury, the coal or wood range will save half of the electric current. Dishwashing by electricity is another labor-saver three times a day. Vacuum cleaners run by electricity take the dust and microbes out of floor rugs with less hand labor than pushing a carpet sweeper. Incubators are better heated by electricity than any other way. Brooders come under the same class. Sewing-machines were operated by electricity in sweatshops years ago—because it paid. Farm women are now enjoying the same privilege.
Electric lighting on the farm is the most spectacular, if not the most interesting result of electric generation in the country. This feature of the subject was somewhat overtaxed by talkative salesmen representing some of the pioneer manufacturers of electric lighting plants, but the business has steadied down. Real electric generating machinery is being manufactured and sold on its merits in small units.
Not many miles from Chicago there is an electric lighting plant on a dairy farm that is giving satisfaction. The stables are large and they are managed on the plan of milking early in the morning and again in the middle of the afternoon. The morning work requires a great deal of light in the different stables, more light than ordinary, because the milking is done by machinery. The milking machine air-pump is driven by electricity generated on the farm, the power being supplied by a kerosene engine.
Electricity on this farm is used in units, separate lines extending to the different buildings. The lighting plant is operated on what is known as the 32-volt system; the rating costs less to install than some others and the maintenance is less than when a higher voltage is used. I noticed also that there are fewer parts in connection with the plant than in other electric light works that I have examined.
Technical knowledge of electricity and its behavior under different circumstances is hardly necessary to a farmer, because the manufacturers have simplified the mechanics of electric power and lighting to such an extent that it is only necessary to use ordinary precaution to run the plant to its capacity.
At the same time it is just as well to know something about generators, switchboards and the meanings of such terms and names as volt, ampere, battery poles, voltmeter, ammeter, rheostat, discharge switch, underload circuit breaker, false fuse blocks, etc., because familiarity with these names, and the parts they represent gives the person confidence in charging the batteries. Such knowledge also supplies a reason for the one principal battery precaution, which is not to use out all of the electricity the batteries contain.
Those who have electric lighting plants on the farm do not seem to feel the cost of running the plants, because they use the engine for other purposes. Generally manufacturers figure about 1 H.P. extra to run a dynamo to supply from 25 to 50 lights. My experience with farm engines is that for ordinary farm work such as driving the cream separator, working the pump and grinding feed, a two-horse power engine is more useful than any other size. Farmers who conduct business in the usual way will need a three-horsepower engine if they contemplate adding an electric lighting system to the farm equipment.
Among the advantages of an electric lighting system is the freedom from care on the part of the women. There are no lamps to clean or broken chimneys to cut a finger, so that when the system is properly installed the only work the women have to do is to turn the switches to throw the lights on or off as needed.