Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1910 — AUTO PLOW [ARTICLE]

AUTO PLOW

Turns Over Thirty Acres a Day. —Does Work of 30 Horses. Washington, Ind., June 6. An automobile plow is now m use on the Graham farms, north of this city. The machine arrived last Friday and the first test was made Saturday in the presence of a large number. of farmers. It seemed to work perfectly. , The automobile has a radiator and fans for cooling the engine, the same as other autos. It is propeled with gasoline, and magneto sparks explode the gas. it has four wheels, the front wheels about four feet high and the rear wheels eight feet high. The rear wheels are about eighteen inches wide, enabling the auto to travel through soft earth without miring deeply. Behind the auto is drawn a gang of eight plows, plowing a strip ten feet wide each trip across the farm. The auto, when plowing, travels at a speed of two and one-half to three miles an hour. After the first trip across the farm it automatically guides itself, and if the field be free from stumps it could be started at one end of the farm, a mile or two long, and without any one accompanying it, would do the work perfectly. Plowing thirty acres is regarded as an average day’s work for the machine. Thirty horses and fifteen men would be necessary toto the Same work. Only $4 worth’or gasoline is required to feed the engine a day while in operation. All of Graham’s 1,600 acres are in two-hundred acre farms. The auto and plows, therefore, travel a long distance before making turns. This is said to be the first practical test, of the auto plow in Indiana.