. . . . 40
Feed per horse, 10 cents a day (265 idle days) per acre. . . 2.65
Two drivers, two gang ploughs, at $2 each per day, per acre. . 50
----
Cost of ploughing with horses; per acre. . . . . . . . . . . 1.46
At present costs, an acre would run about 40 cents only two cents
representing depreciation and repairs. But this does not take account of
the time element. The ploughing is done in about one fourth the time,
with only the physical energy used to steer the tractor. Ploughing has
become a matter of motoring across a field.
Farming in the old style is rapidly fading into a picturesque memory.
This does not mean that work is going to remove from the farm. Work
cannot be removed from any life that is productive. But power-farming
does mean this--drudgery is going to be removed from the farm.
Power-farming is simply taking the burden from flesh and blood and
putting it on steel. We are in the opening years of power-farming. The
motor car wrought a revolution in modern farm life, not because it was a
vehicle, but because it had power.
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