Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1917 — Page 2

TRACTORS TURN FARMING TO JOY-RIOING

The gasoline horse is rapidly revolutionizing American agriculture:: Robert H. Moulton describes for our readers some of the wonders performed by the mechanical hired hand on our broad acres

i ”*"7l HE f armer took t 0 the a utoino ' bile as he does to a circus. Old Dobbins of the buggy has long < since been smothered by the 1 exhaust from the four-cylinder rw}, gas vehicles, and now he is beIng ousted from his old and IL afe arduous vocation of plowing and harvesting. If it were not X for tke welcoming a o ns of tlie )) belligerent war buyers, there would be no one to love or cherish our black beauties, and, like poor relations, they would have to survive on the husks. Farming has ever been attractive to the city, chap, and It has always been extremely toilsome to the native. But now, with the aid of mechanical hired hands, farming in the future will be mere joy-riding. Instead of following a team of panting, perspiring horses and stumbling over rough clods in the broiling ran while trying to keep under control a plow whose diabolical disposition is to twist and turn from the straight and even furrow, Mr. Farmer can put on his automobile goggles and gloves, seat himself comfortably in the spring seat of a tractor, and under a canvas canopy that shunts away the sun, guide his obedient steel steed across the fields. In the springtime the plowing can be done to the music of the birds, who gather around to watch for the luckless but luscious worms turned up by the blades. By one turn of the wheel, a battery of disk plows can be made to obey orders like soldiers. When the plowing is done, the mechanical hired man will as cheerfully pull a harrow or a seeding machine, and no stops need be made in the shade to allow the “critter” to “blow.” A tractor loves to work and all it asks in return is that its stomach be kept full of the spirits that enthuse but do not intoxicate. During the dinner hour, if the farmer follows his efficiency book faithfully, he will connect up his tractor engine with the pump and fill the water reservoir, or perhaps he will turn the churn for mother. After a long pull at the cider barrel and the distillate tank, both master and servant are ready to resume operations. As the seasons merge one into another, and the crops are all planted and growing under the genial smiles of Old Sol and the sympathetic ministrations of Jupiter Pluvius. Mr. Farmer, with nothing to do but watch his grain grow, can drive his tractor over to the neighboring wood lot, and with the help of his husky sons, or his neighbor’s stalwart sons, can cut enough cordwood to defy the advance and siege of Jack Frost. The modern tractor loves to be tied to a buzz saw, and it sings right merrily while doing Its work. When the wood is cut. £he obliging tractor will haul it to the woodshed, and then, like the Jamons man of history, will look for new work to conquer. The overwhelming advantage of the tractor over horses is that of power and endurance. If the supply tank of one of these machines is kept fhlLOf fuel, it will work on indefinitely without rest, whereas beasts of burden demand time to eat and sleep and rest. , Then, too, it is much easier on the farmer to sit on a seat and plow by turning a wheel tljan to follow the furrows on foot. Consequently, the farmer with a tractor will do all his plowing in from a fourth to a half of the time required with horses. By equipping the machines with electric lights, generated by the motor, the surrounding ground ?can be made~, as light as day, anSTlowing can go on independent —the wi.Poor Dobbins would .give up—tlieghost If subjected to such treatment. The superiority of the tractor is also demonstrated by the ability to get over ground so soft and muddy that ordinary horses and farm implements would mire in. The - modern hall-tread tractor is built to run on its own track. Being wide and flat, with the weight of the machine evenly distributed. this' caterpillar type of perambulator ca’n navigate through a sea of inud, and by its great traction power can pull anything except teeth. In the rice fields of California, where water- stands upon the ground during all the growing season, the tractor is found to be the only feasible means of getting over the fields for plowing, seeding, cutting and harvesting the crop. It even furnishes the motive power for thrashing the rice. If the road In front of the farm is rough and needs the smoothing .influence of the tractor, it will do the job and do tt right. If the hens have been industrious, or bossy’s product has been converted Into golden butter or cheese for the city folks, Mr. Farmer can haul them to market by hitching a trailer behind His tractor: Many Of the machines are bought for their hauling nihility alone. It will even take the folks to church on Sunday, If the jitney happens to break down on Saturday night. In fact, the tractor is as versatile as a movie star and it doesn’t mind showing off its diverse talents. One has even been known to rid a cellar of rodents by “coughing” the gas from its exhaust through a rubber tube run into the private dwelling ofi Mr. Bat. t , ( The development of the tractor is a matter of

evolution. It Ims been with us tor many years, but the older members' of the family, though big in stature, were extremely awkward, had many ills and didn’t believe in efficiency. They were very impressive Jo look nt. but when the farmer bought one he usually found that it made the most durable impression upon the ground. It was a better staller than a politician. Through education, however, it was developed into a finer thing. It lost a lot of its awkwardness with its size and gained in strength and flexibility. Its groans were converted into action. It began to wear new shoes, and when a mudhole or a gully confronted it. instead of puffing and snorting and marking time, as the older ones did. it rolled on through the soft spots, or climbed out of the ditches. Its new revolving track shoes could go anywhere, and It did. The latest proof of this is seen in the reports from the European battlefields, where armored “tanks” are walking over all obstacles. It is said on .reliable Authority that these tanks are built upon a foundation of an American type of tractor. It is in orchard work that the tractor has won its way into the hearts of many owners. \ln a well-managed orchard it is necessary to plow up as close to the trees as possible. With a team and the old-fashioned plow, it is impossible to cut corners and reach little out-of-the-way nooks, but not so with the tractor. It can turn

Trade Secrets Held at Enormous Prices

The Oxford Press syndicate values its formula for milking the very thin, tough paper used in .the Bibles and encyclopedias at more than $1,000,'OOO. To perfect the process required 25 years of hard work and the expenditure of $1,000,000 in cash. A secret of even greater value is the formula for making the paper employed for the Bank of England notes. This is a family possession of the Portals of Lavenstroke. to whom already in two generations it has brought an enormous fortune. The brilliant red cloth of the cardinals’ robes worn at the Vatican has been manufactured for many generations by the same firm of merchants at Burstcheid. near Aix-la-Chapelle.. The - secret process of distilling the dye is given by father to son, with every precaution to prevent any outsider from gaining possession of the recipe, according to a writer in the Los Angeles Times. In this connection it is rather curious to note that this family of cloth merchants is of Huguenot descent and i s Protestant today. Recipe for Green Chartreuse. When the monks of La Grlmde Chartreuse were expelled from France, the senior abbot carried the recipe for the famous liqueur in a casket of tempered steel, anddhis was never for a moment out of his possession. In the open market afterward formulae for the twin liqueurs, the proon chartreuse and the yellow, were sold for $1,600,000. At the time this liqueur .was first made the recipe was written on a single fragment of parchment, six inches by nine. One by one additional ingredients were introduced. It has been stated that at the present time the fhixture contains 137 different substances. And every addition to the drink required an addition to the recipe. a - The result was a volume of more than 100 pages. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most valuable book in the world. This becomes rather amusing when we remember Thatthe mendicant friar who first concocted the liqueur regarded his Invention with considerable disfavor. He was as shortsighted as Giovahni Farina, who was the originator of eau de cologne. He offered the recipe for sale at $3,500. A conservative estimate of the total value of its sales’ profits since that is $25,000,000. Famous Maraschino Cordial. The Namis of Zara, in Dalmatia, were wiser. They possessed as one of their heirlooms a family recipe for a drink distiUed from the marasco, or wild cherry. When they finally consented to part with their secret they received thereforta large sum in cash and land to the extent of several thousand acres. This is the cordial popular the world over as Maraschino. secrets have been lost beyond recovery. For instance, the best watch oil, it appears, cannot be obtained today because the secret process of mixing perished with the inventor. It is said that |h<> last quart of this famous liquid was sold for S2OO, and that was 35 yeans ago. Since then every effort has been made to analyze the product in an attempt to repreditce. the oil, but without success. The man whq made it alone knew its composition died, and, it further appears, not even his name or the place of his burial is fcnown. He never revealed to anyone the details of his process and it was not until after his death that the real value of the oil was appreciated. Business firms are not the only possessors of trade secrets. Governments are just as zealous

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

around like a whirling dervish and can come close enough to a tree or the fence to caress but not offend tt. A favorite trigk of one make of a California tractor is to turn completely around on an ordinary railroad flat car. When one con-t-idors the width of these cars the feat is a remarkable one. If all else fails, the. machine can get a job in a circus as a contortionist. One of the odd uses to which tractors tire put is that of clearing land for cultivation. Op the virgin fields of Canada the ranchers found the new land to be thickly covered with tough brush and young trees, forming a dense mat, to clear which by hand seemed a formidable task. A tractor owner rigged up a sort of “summer snowplow” made of two sharp blades at the hot tom and a number of steel rods placed horizontally over a V-shaped frame that ran to a height of four or five feet. By fastening this contrivance to the front of his tractor, and by bucking the forest growth as he would a snowdrift, the brush was cut off close to the ground and thrown to ftne side and burned. Later the same tractor went over the ground with a gangplow and cut out all th^‘roots and turned up the soil for planting. The tractor on the fa rm has come to stay, and the up-to-date farmer will find it as hard to get along without one as a wife, and much easier to get along with.

in guarding valuable processes as are manufacturers. For example, the Chinese government is the owner of the secret of making vermillion red, which is held by many experts to be the most beautiful shade of red in the world. No one has ever been able to produce a like vermillion. The Turkish government, it appears, possesses a similar secret process of inlaying precious metals in the hardest steel. The work is done perfectly and defies all attempts at reproduction. In 1913 it was announced that a distinguished chemist of the imperial- technical school of Moscow had solved the problem of making artificial rubber, and that he could sell the new product at about 30 cents a pound. Yet the price of rubber remains pretty much the same, if not’more. Thd reason may be found by examining the patent office records. In the last decade many hundreds of patents for artificial rubber have been taken out. Substitutes have been made from petroleum, from coal tar, turpentine, peat, from nitrated linseed oil and by treating cereals with phyalin. The latter invention created a considerable sensation so long ago as 1900, yet, judging by the constantly increasing demand for the natural product, it has had little effect upon the real rubber market. The chemist, working in his laboratory, can take any substance and analyze it, that is, break it up into" its original constituents, and telt you what they are and how much of each element the substance in when it comes to building up the original substance out of its prime constituents he is at sea, for the most part. By dint of long and patient <‘xperinumts_ or perhaps by pure chance he may succeed in reproducing some few natural products, but that is as far as he can go. Indigo -blue took ‘many years to synthetize. A German chemist accomplished it at last, but the curious discovery was made that if blended with the natural product made from the indigo plant the color obtained Was both more durable and brighter than that made by either dye alone. So artificial indigo has not yet ruined the indigo planter. '' < Gutta Percha Becomes Scarcer. Artificial camphor has also been produced. It is now made from pine-tree turpentine. But the chemist has not yet succeeded in synthetizing gutta percha. This commodity yearly becomes scarcer. Enormous quantities are required for various purposes, notably the covering of submarine cables and the making of golf balls. A. fortune awaits the man who can make artificial gutta percha at a price that will permit it to compete with the juice of the Dlchopis gutta. Cork is another substance of everyday use that seems to defy the inventor. The only substitute for cork Is paper treated with paraffin wax. But such a cork could not be used for a bottle of wine. So far nothing has bden artificially made to compete with the bark of the cork oak. At Delhi, in India, stands an ancient iron monument which, though exposed to all weathers, never rusts or decays. Yet it has no protective covering. Here is a secret which would be simply .invaluable to the wor.ld. which has been discovered by some Indian artificer of old and most unfortunately lost. At a meeting of steel and iron men in London, the chairman said that they could face the future with complacency if they coujd rediscover the secret. To shipowners alone It would mean a yearly saving of millions. Rust is the .great enemy of the steel ship and she has eonstafitly to go into dock to have her hull coated with an anticorrosive solution. w

Battles Which Made the World

THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA - Fire nad Storm — d the s«« Kln«»of Reallatoar Hie Dream of a World Empire.

It Is said that before the start of the present hostilities Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British admiralty, mobilized the grand fleet in defiance of orders not to do so, and thus was ready to spring at Germany with every sea dog of England when war brpke forth. If Colonel Churchill thus acted he had high English example in the case of Lord Howard Effingham. It was he who is high admiral of England in 1588 disobeyed most flagrantly Queen Elizabeth’s own order to dismantle part of his fleet and was therefore possessed • of the strength to smash the great armada of Spain when its lofty galleons came rolling into the channel. Spain was at that time perhaps the most powerful nation in the world. England was by comparison feeble. Spain sought l world empire. Her Philip believed it possible to make himself the head of a universal monarchy, sharing power only with the pope. England stood in his way. Hence the dispatch of the armada to make England vassal to Spain, burn her heretics and establish the sway of Philip over both the old and the new hemispheres. Howard, with his captains, was at a game of bowls in Plymouth town when there came scuttling into the harbor a Scotch privateer with the tews that the armada was even then off the Cornish coasff Forthwith there was a rush for messengers, a lighting of alarm fires and a press of captains for their ships. Only Sir Frances Drake remained unconcerned. There was time, he observed, both to win the game and beat the Spaniards. So aiming their bowls very carefully and coolly they finished what Hallam reckons the “best and bravest match that ever was scored.” The royal navy, augjnented now by several times its number of armed merchantmen, had got together a fleet of 191 vessels. The bitterly punished but still indomitable Dutch sent some help from Holland. The largest vessel’of all was the Triumph, measuring 1,100 tons. The number of men was slightly over 17,000. Howard, commanding, was himself a Catholic, but though Philip proclaimed his cause the cause of the church against the heretic, Howard and all the other English Catholics remained splendidly loyal. Against them Philip sent a force the tremendous extent of which is given by Hakluyt. The vessels numbered 150, no less than 64 of them galleons, which Hakluyt says were of “an huge bignesse and of marvellous force and so high that they resembled great castles.” Manning the fleet were 8,000 sailors, 2,088 slaves and 20,000 soldiers, besides- nobles and gentlemen, all under command of the duke of Medina Sidonia. At Dunkirk, the great Spanish general, Farnese, was collecting another fleet for the transport o$ troops to England as soon as the armada should win the command of the seas. “The Invincible Armada” as the Spaniards termed it, entered the Channel, headed for Plymouth In the hope of surprising the English, found Howard sallying forth to meet it, and stood off for Dunkirk. Howard first sighted his enemy on Saturday, the 20th of July. Letting the great fleet pass, he followed, harrying it so severely that the Spaniards lost several ships. Medina Sidonia at last brought his ships to anchor in Calais roadstead, his larger craft lying in the outer circle. Howard dared not attack at close quarters, since his vessels were much inferior in tonnage and In ordinance, while, as Sir Wallace Raleigh says, “the Spaniard had an army on board him and Howard had none.” However on the night of the 29th he sent In eight fireships, so alarming the "Spaniards that they cut their cables abd put to sea. - One of the largest galeasses fouled another and went ashore. In the confusion the rest of the fleet became badly scattered so that in the morning the feat of reassembling in fleet formation was most difficult. Now was the opportunity of the English to attack on something like equal terms. Drake and Fener were the first to tackle their cumbersome foes. Then came Fenton, Southwell, Burton and the rest, with the lord admiral plunging in himself. While the action was that of detached vessels rather than squadrons, It was general and It was furiously hot. Drake was hulled no less than 40 times and his cabin was shot out from under him. The shot of a' demiculverin landed on the dinner table of the earl of Northumberland. But the English ships were the smarter sailors, the English got the weather gauge and they kept the vessels in a smother of smoke and flame as they, smote the unwieldy Spanish hulls, d'4 the decks of which huddled the great mass of soldiery, worse than useless in this action, where the English simply would not come to close quarters and fight the matter out with boarders. Sir Martin Frobisher was at one time in action with no leas than four of the enemy’s vessels. Drake sank a galleon which took to the bottom with her no less than "1,000 men. His formation broken, his ships shattered, the dukei of Medina Sidonia was drjven past Dunkirk, where lay the flotilla of Farnese hopelessly imprisoned by Justin-

By CAPT. ROLAND F. ANDREWS

(Copyright, 1917, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate)

ius and his Dutch blockaders. Before! a southerly breeze the Spaniard ran for| the north, abandoning the effort to gaim command of the seas*and hoping only to round Scotland and make his way: back home, ___ 2 - The rest is a pitiful tale. The English followed until August 2, their gun* thundering and their hearts exulting as. now and then a tall ship plunged beneath the waves. Then perceiving an apparent shift of the Spanish course toward Norway, and.being themselves well nigh out of ammunition they thought it best, ip the words of Drake,, to “leave them to those boisterous and uncouth northern seas.” The weather that summer was? almost a succession of gales. The clumsy Spanish ships were hard put to it to keep afloat. Many of them foundered at sea with all on board. At least are known to have gone ashore on the coast of Ireland, where the Irish either put the survivors to the sword or sent them with halters round their neck* to Elizabeth at London. Of all the magnificent fleet which had put to sea with such pageantry and pride less than 50 craft succeeded in making their way back to Spanish ports. Philip’s dream of world conquest was at an end. Not so much as a single English pinnace had the great armada sunk. England and the seas about her were to remain free and unconquered. The sea kings of Britain had saved her and in truth singed the beard of the king of Spain. Drake sleeps deep in Nombre Dois bay. His drum still hangs in Plymouth. Hoe and England has his promise: “If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll leave the port of heaven And we’ll drum them up the Channel As we drummed them long ago.”

DOG HAS THE SIXTH SENSE

Scientists Declare Canine Possesses One More Than Number of Which Human Beings Boast. Human beings, as is well known, boast five senses, but the scientists argue that the dog goes one better, and possesses six. What the sixth sense is has long puzzled the best authorities. It is something more than the mere sense of smell, as the following Instances show, according to London Tit-Bits. It is possible, for instance, for a dog to make its way into a crowd of people and pick out its master. In so doing the animal uses Its sense of smell; but there is another qualification to be accounted for. Cases have frequently been reported where dogs, after being taken on long journeys by train, have been lost amid their new surroundings, eventually to find their way home again. Such a case is that of a retriever which was taken by train to St. Albans, but, leaving its newhome shortly after arrival, returned to Its home at Highgate Hill. It took the retriever Wo days to cover this distance, and the. dog was well-nigh exhausted when It reached Highgate Hill. How Is it possible for a dog to pick out its way in such a manner? one might ask. The dog has undoubtedly more than the five senses credited to human beings, but scientists have yet to tell us what the extra one is. When the dog has been taught to speak we may perhaps have the problem solved from self-experience.

England's First Almanac.

The first almanac printed in England was the “Kalendar of Shepardes,” which appeared 1 n 1497, just 40 years after Gutenberg printed his first almanac at Mentz. From that time on-, ward almanacs were numerous, “omens and prognostications” being addled in most cases to the calendar information. One of the earliest specimens preserved enjoys the title of “The Prognostycacyon of Master John Tubault’ of the influence of the moon of peas and warre and of slknesses of the yere, with the constellacions that be under kynges and princes.” —London Mirror.

Jeems Henry Was Conjured!

’ “Mars John,” excitedly exclaimed Aunt Tildy, as she pantlngly rushed Into a fire engine house, “please, suh, phonograph to de car-cleaners’ semporlum an’ notify Dan’l to emergrate home dlurgently, kaze Jeems Henry sho’ done bin conjured ! Doctor Cutter done already distracted two bloodvultures from the ’pendercitls, an ,1 lef him now prezaminatin’ de chile’s ante-bellum fur de germans ob de nepro-plujnonia, which es he’s disinfected wld, dey gotter ’noculate him wid the ice-coldlated quarantines —but I believes it’s conjuration!”—Richnjond Times-Dlspatch.

Honest Resentment

“That fellow Bliggins is a fourflush.” “Look here,” exclaimed Broncho Bob. “I don’t want to get Into no trouble on account of sentiment. But I’m not goin’ to hear you compare one, of thte purtiest hands in the deck fol bluffing purposes to a plaid fllscari proposition like Bliggins.”