FIXING UP HIS ROADS This Arkansas farmer uses his tractor in dragging to make improved highways. DRAGS ROADS WITH ROAD-dragging is done on a large scale and in an efficient manner by a farmer living near Bentonville, Arkansas, who hitches the eight-horsepower tractor, which he uses to cultivate his orchard, to three drags which cover the entire width of the roadway. The two outside drags are platforms upon which rocks. are piled and where the men stand, adding the necessary weight. "The best job of road dragging I ever saw", said a road enthusiast who investigated it. The triple drags are arranged so that the desired crown is secured in the center of the road. the pump is an inverted glass jar holding a gallon. The gasoline passes through this jar going into or coming out of a tank. A shipper is given a tag showing how much gasoline has been taken out of his machine and, at the other end of the run, the same tag calls for a similar quantity to be put back in the machine. At the Chicago end, the pump is on wheels and is rolled close to an auto tank where it is either filled or emptied. The reserve supply of gasoline is stored away, safe from dangerous exposure. These con EMPTY GASOLINE TANKS FOR SHIPMENT INSIDE the big new steamship dock, recently built at Benton Harbor, is to be found an apparatus for taking gasoline out of the tanks of automobiles and for recharging same. There is another kind of device at the Chicago end of the lake line. Government law requires every ounce of gasoline to be pumped out of machines before they are put on board a ship for freightage across the lake. The Benton Harbor line hit on a plan for an even exchange. At the dock at that place is built a box-like enclosure. The door being opened discloses a pump. Above MEASURING THE CAR'S SUPPLY Before the automobile is shipped across Lake Michigan it must be relieved of its gasoline. trivances are necessary because of the increased shipment of machines to avoid long and costly runs over sandy roads. into the summer resort country of Northern Michigan. TAKING THE LAST JOB FROM THE HORSE It was found necessary because it was too hot for the animals to work. County, Kansas, farmer hit on a new plan to push his harvest to completion. To the rear of his gasoline tractor he fastened a heavy beam. To one end of the latter he hooked the header barge, and to the other end he fastened the chains that drew the header. One heavy chain runs direct from the tractor's drawbar to the header. When the barge is filled with the grain, it is quickly and easily detached. A waiting team is hitched on and the barge is drawn to the stack. Meanwhile another barge has been attached just as quickly to the tractor bar, and the work of cutting is kept going. Where the stacking is done in the field, a hustler with one team can keep the barges going between the harvester and the stack. Three men only are required to run the header combination. One man runs the tractor; one man guides the header; and one man loads the ROWS OF CORN A IN eastern Colorado, which boasts of some of the finest dry farming land in the West, fields of immense area are the rule. The accompanying photograph shows part of an eighty-acre cornfield on the farm of C. M. Walker, fifteen miles from Yuma, with rows one mile long. The evenness of the rows, which stretch out as straight as a string as far as the eye can see, illustrates well the exceeding care with which farming is conducted in this section. Next to the corn, Mr. Walker has twelve acres sown to amber seed in mile-long rows. AT T Spanish Fork, in Utah, Mr. and Mrs. William Jex recently celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding. One hundred and ninety-one direct descendants spent the day with them in a great family reunion. There were ten sons and daughters with their wives and husbands; one hundred and ten grandchildren, and seventy great-grandchildren. This venerable couple are still hearty, vigorous, and in possession of all their faculties. All the sons and most of the grandsons are active business men in the State. They have been of service to their various communities in a way of which the old couple is proud. INDIAN GOES FAR FOR WOOD CHARLIE LITTLE WOLF hews out his tepee poles near Pactola in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Spruce is regarded by the Indian as by far the best lodge pole material and, to secure this, Little Wolf and his family drive in their light Indian wagon one hundred miles from the Pine Ridge reservation. They take trees, five or six inches through at the butt, and skin them down till but two and a half inches of heart wood is left. Sixteen poles are used in a set, which is worth sixteen dollars when delivered at the reservation. Little Wolf is an Ogalala, Dakota, more commonly called Sioux, and a stanch Episcopalian. His Black Hills brethren still take pride in the tepee poles which are just as good as those their fathers made before the white man disturbed his people. CHARLIE LITTLE WOLF MAKING HIS TEPEE POLES Twelve thousand acres of Egyptian cotton were planted this year in the Southwest. A NEW LAND for an T By Philip R. Kellar HIS is the third year since the at Sacaton, in Arizona, began to furnish the irrigation farmers of the Salt River Valley with pure breed Egyptian cotton seed. The crop this season from but a small part of this section in one State is expected to yield the farmers a million and a half dollars in cash, half of which will be net profit for them, and most of the remainder of which will be paid out in wages. Three years ago a few farmers were persuaded to try the ancient money crop. of Egypt in the new land and they planted three hundred and fifty acres. Last year this acreage jumped to forty-five hundred because of the success that marked the first year. This year there are about twelve thousand acres planted to Egyptian cotton, and already there are two ginning mills in the district to take care of the crop, one at Phoenix and the other at Chandler. So important has the new-old crop become in so short a time that already systematic efforts have been started to protect it. There are three associations in the Valley which co-operate with the state authorities and the United States Department of Agriculture in the task of preventing the importation of inferior seed, and of maintaining and increasing the standard of the seed that has been bred to suit that climate and soil. One man, a Kentucky farmer, L. C. Sloan, bought sixty acres of irrigated land in the Mesa district, at one hundred and eighty-five dollars an acre, paying one thousand dollars cash and promising A NEW LAND FOR AN OLD CROP to pay the balance in annual installments of two thousand dollars. He put fifty acres in cotton and the other ten in garden truck. The ten acres paid all living expenses and the cost of growing the cotton, and the cotton enabled him to pay five thousand dollars instead of two thousand dollars for his first annual installment. Egyptian cotton is a long, strong, finetextured staple, worth twice as much as the upland cotton of the South. It is in great demand by manufacturers of threads, finer cotton fabrics, mercerized goods, and imitation silks. Egypt is the sole source of supply, no other area of any size having been found adapted to the profitable growth of the crop. The Egyptian yield is limited to the area reached by the periodical overflows of the River Nile. The yield ranges from one million five hundred thousand to one million eight hundred thousand bales of four hundred and eighty pounds. The acreage in Egypt is approximately the same as the number of bales produced, the Egyptian yield ranging from four hundred to five hundred pounds an acre. The Salt River Valley in Arizona contains over one million acres of arable land in its length of sixty miles and its width of fifteen to thirty miles. Onefifth of this area, or two hundred thousand acres, is under irrigation. Present irrigation projects when completed will increase. the area to two hundred and seventy-five thousand acres. Probably a large part of the remaining seven hundred and fifty thousand will be placed under irrigation. Some Egyptian cotton is being grown in the Imperial Valley, in California. A. J. Chandler, 359 believes that within a few years the yield in the Salt River Valley will be increased to one thousand pounds an acre, and that in a comparatively short time the American manufacturers using Egyptian cotton will be independent of the foreign crop. His experimental plot last season yielded seven hundred and fifty pounds to the acre, and he says the season was not propitious, being the shortest in many years. Egyptian cotton requires a long growing season. The cotton seldom commands a lower price on the market than twenty cents per pound, and nearly always from one to three cents more. A seven-hundredpound crop would yield at twenty cents, one hundred and forty dollars' worth of lint and eighteen dollars' worth of seed. The total cost of producing it amounts to approximately seventy-eight dollars per acre, based upon the cost of production last season. The principal item of expense is picking, which last season amounted to about fifty dollars per acre. The cotton planters are confident that as other and more proficient pickers are developed it will be possible to get the work done as low as three or even two cents a pound. That will materially reduce the cost of production. Only a small amount of irrigation is needed to mature the crop. planted in the spring as The seed is soon as the LONG ROWS OF EGYPTIAN COTTON IN THE SALT RIVER VALLEY OF ARIZONA who began experimenting with Egyptian cotton fifteen years ago, is convinced that there are other valleys, where the land can be irrigated, in which this cotton can be successfully grown. He NEAR PHOENIX ground is warm. It is very desirable that no water be applied until after the seeds have germinated and the young plants have pushed their way above the surface. Light irrigation and cultiva |