Farm Mechanics: Machinery and Its Use to Save Hand Labor on the Farm.

by Herbert A. Shearer

Harvesting—mowing, pulling grain binders, pulling potato digger.

Belt Work—hay baling, corn shelling, heavy pumping for irrigation, grinding feed, threshing, clover hulling, husking and shredding, silo filling, stone crushing.

Road Work—grading, dragging, leveling, ditching, hauling crops.

Miscellaneous—running portable sawmill, stretching wire fencing, ditch digging, manure spreading.

Generally speaking, however, the most important farm tractor work is preparing the seed-bed thoroughly and quickly while the soil and weather conditions are the best. And the tractor’s ability to work all day and all night at such times is one of its best qualifications.

To plow one square mile, or 640 acres, with a walking plow turning a twelve-inch furrow, a man and team must walk 5,280 miles. The gang-plow has always been considered a horse killer, and, when farmers discovered that they could use oil power to save their horses, many were quick to make the change.

It requires approximately 10 horsepower hours to turn an acre of land with horses. At a speed of two miles, a team with one plow in ten hours will turn two acres. To deliver the two horsepower required to do this work, they must travel 176 feet per minute and exert a continuous pull of 375 pounds or 187.5 pounds per horse.

One horsepower equals a pull of 33,000 pounds, moved one foot per minute. Two-mile speed equals two times 5,280 or 10,560 feet per hour, or 176 feet per minute. Sixty-six thousand divided by 176 equals 375 foot pounds pull per minute. One horsepower is absorbed in 88 feet of furrow.

Horse labor costs, according to Government figures, 12¹⁄₂ cents per hour per horse. On this basis ten hours’ work will be $1.25, which is the average daily cost of each horse. An average Illinois diversified farm of 160 acres would be approximately as follows: Fifty acres of corn, 30 acres of oats and wheat, 20 acres of hay, 60 acres of rough land, pasture, orchard, building and feed lots.

This average farm supports six work horses or mules and one colt. According to figures taken from farm work reports submitted by many different corn belt farmers, the amount of horse-work necessary to do this cropping would figure out as follows: