whole field at one operation. We can easily go over 50 to 75 acres a day with this outfit, for the header cuts a swath twenty feet wide. Over there, Sheldon is just running a header alone. You see, it is pushed along with four or five horses behind it. The row of wagons are 'grain barges,' as we call them. One is kept at the side of the header, and driven at the same speed. The heads are loaded into it by the moving belt; and, as soon as filled, it is driven away and another takes its place. He's got a stationary thresher somewhere, and the barges are feeding it but wait till you see his tractor. I guess he's got it on the other side of the field. We'll get over there this afternoon."

When Uncle Ben saw it, he could scarcely believe his eyes. He knew all about the threshing machine, and the way it was drawn from farm to farm in York State, to separate the grain from the straw; but the traction engine merely pulled the thresher along the "pike," and then was used as a stationary engine to run the thresher. It seemed like a toy contrasted with this great farm motor, which moved across the field exerting the power of seventy-five horses; but the power was needed, for, as it worked its way forward, it kept in motion mechanisin which cut every stalk of grain in a

space thirty feet wide, carried it to the thresher, separated the wheat and put it into sacks, and then piled the straw to one side. Every twelve hours it converted 150 acres into stubble; yet the "crew" required consisted merely of an engineer and helper, a man to take away the filled grain-bags, and a fourth to control the movements of the thresher.

"I wish you could see the tractor do the work of the farm horse in the early season," observed Henry, as he noted Uncle Ben's interest in the harvesting scene. "Here it takes just as many horses to turn up corn land as it does the clay soil out East. We would calculate about three to a plow, and to get over an acre or two is a good day's work, but it is wonderful what can be done with these things. When the

furrow. A strip from ten to twelve feet wide is plowed as the tractor moves across the field. There may be obstacles in the way-hummocks and stumps and stone piles. The steersman guides the big front wheel around them. Of course the plows cannot be steered; so, when one reaches the stump or stone pile, the tractor stops until the implement is lifted around it."

"The farmer with a tractor thinks it is slow work if he does less than twentyfive acres in an average day. But the tractor's work does not stop here. Plowing, you know, is easy compared to harrowing. Think of a weight of fifteen to twenty tons being rolled over soft, freshly turned earth at a rate of two hundred

But even Western hay-making was a revelation to the York State farmer. He was accustomed to horse mower and rake; but the idea of loading the hay by machinery was something novel, and at his request Henry drove behind one of the automatic loaders. It was hitched to the rear end of the hay wagon, and consisted merely of a two-wheeled truck supporting an inclined platform, the

They

and fifty acres in a day. The tractor goes over ground so soft that the men walking beside it sink above their ankles in the loam or mud. The harrows it pulls are made specially for it. are usually fifty feet square, ten times the ordinary horse size; and two or three are operated at a time, each covering two hundred square feet of ground, into which their teeth go to a depth of six inches. Yet they are dragged over twenty and twenty-five acres in an hour. Seed drills may be attached to the harrows, so that at one process the hundredacre lot is planted and cultivated."

lower part of which consisted of an end less belt. As the truck was drawn along behind the wagon, the hay was caught on the moving belt and carried up the incline to the top of the load, where it was stowed away by a man with a pitchfork. As fast as a wagon was loaded, the loader was disconnected and the hay carried to the barn or stack.

"Well, Henry, it's a great arrangement -somethin' I never cal'lated on-this farmin' by machinery. I see now why you folks out here on the prairies laugh at our little places. A hundred acres ain't even big enough for one crop for

you, is it? But it must cost a pile o' money to buy these engines and headers and spreaders and what not, yet you say your place ain't mortgaged. How is it about your neighbors-that fellow who is the steam farmer-is he doin' well?"

"I should say he was. The last year we had sixty-cent wheat, how much do you think he raised-80,000 bushels. He had 4,000 acres and it cost him for everything from plowing to teaming it to the depot just $19,000 by his books. He really got $50,000 for the crop. Take out $20,000, and you have his profit$30,000, and on sixtycent wheat. Last year, you know, it touched a dollar. Well, he got in 20,000 bushels at that price out of a 60,000bushel crop. The rest averaged 75 cents. Do

you think he is doing well?" "Well? Why, I'd like to sell my whole place for a quarter of his profit.' "What would you do?"

"Come out here and get rich, too, just like you fellows are doin'. "

F some one were to discover that ordinary dirt was a fuel, which, burned under certain simple conditions, yielded as good or better results than the best Pennsylvania anthracite, it is easy to imagine the popular sensation that I would be caused. Yet results almost if not quite as sensational, obtained by the U. S. Geological Survey Coal-Testing Plant at the St. Louis Exposition last summer, have passed almost unnoticed by the general public.

The experiments at this plant have demonstrated that bituminous coal, heretofore considered less than half as valuable as anthracite, will, when manufactured into gas and burned in a gas engine, produce as much net horse-power per ton of fuel as the best anthracite; and, still better, that lignite, which is so common all through the West and has been considered almost worthless, will actually yield more horse-power per ton than the best anthracite burned under a steam boiler. It has shown that all grades of coal, from the best to the most worthless as judged by former standards, can be utilized in this manner, their value for producing gas being, generally speaking, exactly inverse to their value in directly producing steam in a boiler. That is to say, the poorer the coal for direct steam-producing purposes (by which power coal has been valued in the past), the more valuable it seems to be for yielding gas for use in the gas engine.

Considered simply on their merits, without

comparison with anthracite, the lignites and bituminous coals tested yield two and a-half times as much power when used in the gas engine as they do when used under boilers for producing steam, and thus are shown to be available for fuel where before many of them were practically useless.

The value of the results of these investigations is, of course, not limited to the coal-producing sections of the country, but extends through every State and Territory where coal or other mineral fuel is used as a source of power. If coal can be made to yield two and one-half times as much power as it has heretofore, it means that only two-fifths as much coal will be required to produce a given amount of power. That is, our coal bills will be cut in half, although, paradoxically, the price of coal will not be reduced. For instance, in the New England States, where no coal is mined, the annual cost of the coal consumed for producing steam power for manufacturing purposes is approximately $50,000,000. The development of this power through the more efficient methods sug