For the cockade may help the coachman to identify his hat while the
extra weight means only a waste of strength. I cannot imagine where the
delusion that weight means strength came from. It is all well enough in
a pile-driver, but why move a heavy weight if we are not going to hit
anything with it? In transportation why put extra weight in a machine?
Why not add it to the load that the machine is designed to carry? Fat
men cannot run as fast as thin men but we build most of our vehicles as
though dead-weight fat increased speed! A deal of poverty grows out of
the carriage of excess weight. Some day we shall discover how further to
eliminate weight. Take wood, for example. For certain purposes wood is
now the best substance we know, but wood is extremely wasteful. The wood
in a Ford car contains thirty pounds of water. There must be some way of
doing better than that. There must be some method by which we can gain
the same strength and elasticity without having to lug useless weight.
And so through a thousand processes.
The farmer makes too complex an affair out of his daily work.
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