Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1899 — ELECTRICITY ON THE FARM. [ARTICLE]

ELECTRICITY ON THE FARM.

New York Farmer Putting the Power to a Practical Use. Application or electrical power to farm industry is a new development in the electrical field. There must be many farms on which are water powers, small or large, which could be made to yield electrical energy which would do a great deal of the ordinary farm work. An object lesson in this field is furnished by an equipment recently provided by the Westinghouse company for the farm pf G. R. Beardslee, situated on both ■sides of the East Canadian Creek, near St. Johnsville, N. Y. There are two falls on the farm, one of sixty (feet and the other of 180 feet in height. The lower fall is to be first used for furnishing power for the farm. A power house has been erected near by and a horizontal turbine with a 180-kllowatt (270-horse power) generator installed. From this central power house the electrical current is now transmitted by conducting wires to the farmhouse,. to the barn, cattle sheds, grain houses and other places where lighting or power is required. At these several points the direct electrical current is utilized to drive motors which operate various machines. One motor >f ten-horse power operates a hay-cutting machine, another motor of the same power runs a thrashing machine and a third motor operates a 44-inch circuluar saw for cutting logs. Each of these motors can be used separately or all at one time. The farmhouse is brilliantly lighted and comfortably heated by electricity, the result of a utilization of a waterfall’s power. Electricity-heated flatirons are in the laundry and the kitchen contains a cooking stove also heated by electricity. In the dairy department are milk separators, churns and other appliances, all having electrical motor attachments. Outside the house several arc lamps turn night into day. The use of electric lights in the barn and outhouses greatly diminishes the flanger of fire. Besides having all the electric power he wants for bis own purposes, Mr. Beardslee sells GO-horse power to two knitting factories, and the money received from tills source goes far to defray the running expenses of the electrical plant, which is said have cost only “a moderate amount”—it should not be much more than ss,ooo.—Pittsburg Dispatch.