THE HORSLESS FARMER.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 4 August 1922, Page 3

THE HORSLESS FARMER.

If all the fa :i boys are Icaring tk« farms to work >. the city factories, it may be tliey ; doing so because the factories hav<> > make eo many machines and ap; ' sices for the farmers. Siiyr- an Ameii . a weekly. Of course everyone realif. - that the American farii'."T is making use of th« pi "duels of inventive genius, hut for thi- fust time, the National City Bank of New York notes in its Trade Record, the 1920 Federal census presents figure on the number of automobiles, motor trucks'. Telephones and farm tractors in u»e on the farms of the coumtry. and the number having "water piped into the houfce.'' Hiese figuree. it is remarked, indicate that the automobile and telephone are now a bip factor in farm life, not merely or a comfort and convenience, but as* an actual aid in business. The Trade Record sums up the census figures as follows :

lhe number of telephones, by which the farmer may communicate with Mb local trade centre or with the great cities in which the prices and markets for his products are determined, is officially stated at 2.498,493 in 1920. while another authority puts the total number of phones in all the United States "without regard to ownership" at the end of 1920 at 13.411.379, which suggest- that nearly one-fifth of the phones in tht United States are now in the farm home and farm husinesss service; while 38 per cent .of the reporting farms were equipped with telephoutl service m 1920.

The automobile statistics are also -extremely suggestive. They show Ihe number of automobiles on farms in 1920 at 2,1-16,362. while figures compiled by Automobile Industries put the total of automobiles in use in all the united States in 1920 at 7,90*000 suggesting that the farmers owned in that year considerably more than onefourth of the automobiles of the country, to say nothing of the 139,000 motor trucks and 2-16.000 farm tractors reported in operation on the farms in 1920. Over 30 per cent, of the reporting forms in 1920 utilised automobiles. Still another evidence of the disposition of the farmer to utilise machhiery in increasing his business activities i* found n the fact that the value of "farm implements and machinery" reported m 1920 was nearlv three" time* as much as in 1910. five times as much as m IS9O.

It is not surprising, then, in view of the increasing use by the "farmer of these time and labor-saving devices, tlie telephone, the autoniobue. the motor truck and the farm tractor, ccupled with the enormous increase i<i his farm implements and macbinerv. tfind that ihe census reports a decrease of 14 per cent, in the value of horst". while all other classes of farm animals increased in- value in the same period.