The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 12, 1917, Page 11

") USINESS This is a department of the Leader devoted to news, facts, informadtion and opinions of interest to farmers as farmers and as business men. asoline or the Horse and Buggy? ELLIE I have just about de- cided to buy an auto.” “Now see here, Hiram, don't you let those young folks turn your head. You'd best go easy.” The above has been the trend of the conversation in a good many homes this spring. The time has come when the farmer can look at the touring car and truck as a practical business proposition. The day of breakdowns every few miles is practically a thing of the past as the automobile of today can be de- pended upon to put us over the road. Engines are rapidly being made fool proof, so that most of us can run a car if we just give it the proper care and feed it enough gasoline and oil. The methods of marketing farm pro- duce have changed enough within the last few years to demand a more rapid means of going to town. For instance, the farmer has stopped churning but- ter and is now hauling his cream to the local co-operative creamery. Form- erly he waited until he had several churnings and then hauled it im at one time. This may have been every two weeks and often was only once a month. SAVING TIME WITH CREAM The creamery demands that he bring iu his cream three times a week in warm weather, which means as many trips to town. - The eggs also must be taken in about every seven or eight days. These trips mean that someone must leave the farm with some sort orf a conveyance each trip. If a team or horse is used it keeps them out of the field for the length of time that it takes to make this trip. The farmer’s problem is to get this cream to the creamery in the shortest possible time and with the least in- convenience to his regular work. The auto answers this problem. It is quite an expense to take a team out of the field for this purpose during the busy season. It costs about ninety-four dol- lars a year to keep a horse, to say nothing of the harness and rig, so that it would hardly pay to keep a horse for this purpose. Of course this horse could be used for other work and for driving, but then there would be very little for the work teams to do in the winter. Many farmers keep a span of drivers and of course this would double the expense mentioned. The average dis- tance to town is about six miles. It takes about forty-five minutes to make that trip with a team, while it could be made in one half the time with an auto. Time is worth something. SOME USE A PLEASURE CAR Often farmers invest in a pleasure or tcuring car and use this for the pur- pose of hauling their cream and small produce to town. This plan works out very successfully in most instances and often as many as four to six cans of cream (10-gallon cans) can be hauled te a trip and passengers carried as well. In this way it is also possible to use this car in going to church, visiting, etc. In. these instances the auto takes the place . of the double buggy and team. : It is difficult. now-a-days to obtain a double seated buggy for less than one hundred and twenty-five dollars. The team would be hard to buy under three hundred dollars and the har- ness’ would cost about fifty dollars. This totals to four hundred and seven- ty-five dollars, which will buy a car. Another advantage is that if you have the car, the team which may have had to work during the.day, is able to rest. Farmers who own cars average about three thousand :miles a year. This mileage would - be impossible with a team. Vo Many.of these miles are made at the urgent request of a neighbor. Hurry up calls are frequent on a stock farm and in the busy season on the grain farms a quick trip to town and back for repairs is almost essential at times. The car fits in here. SOME VIVID RECOLLECTIONS ‘We have a very vivid impression of the nights when we used to crawl out of our warm bed, at midnight, hook up the team to a load” of produce, and pound them on the back to reach St. Paul before the market opened. Such The Auto as a Business Proposition on the Farm Taking the produce to market a. trip always meant that the teams had to be kept from the field that day. We ran the risk of picking up dis- eases and carrying them back to the stock on the farm, when we watered and fed our horses, and the trip home was always a long one. It was not only hard on the team. The farmers in that vicinity are now using auto trucks. They leave home at four o'clock and reach the market before it opens. They sell and unload their produce and are back at the farm again by eight or nine o’clock. Upon reaching home the teams are fresh and ready for the day's work. The truck is run into a shed, where it stands without consuming hay or oats, ‘and is ready again when they want it. In some places they run the machine over to the feed grinder or saw and grind up a jag of feed or saw up the wood. DIFFERENT: T‘YPES~OF CARS The modern farmer is able, and with no very great expenditure, to use his auto truck and often his touring car, for a great many purposes than trans- porting products. With the new truck attachments now on the market, a touring car may be transformed into a truck in very short order. It is also possible to harness them up to do much of the field work, such as plow- ing, etc.. Some farmers - prefer the lighter forms of these trucks because of their increased speed, and the fact Minnesota farm school boys operating tractors. This picture was taken in connection with the graduation exercises at St. Anthony. that they seem to travel better on the dirt road than the heavier truck. The farmer may have a two-in-one combination. That is, he may be able to have a touring car and in a very short time change it into a truck. Sev- eral forms of these attachments are on the market. It is claimed by the deal- ers of these attachments that the up- keep cost of a truck of this kind, is not as great as that of a regular truck. A motor truck almost doubles the value of man labor and doubles horse labor on long hauls, because of the fact that the trips are made in half the time. Some truck dealers claim that a farmer can get four times the work, from a light truck or truck at- tachment to a touring car, at the same cost. One company is putting out an eight-in-one convertible farm body for a motor truck that may be used for a hay rack, cattle or hog rack, etc. The long haul is where the motor truck wins out. Practically every haul that a farmer makes on the road is a long haul. Time is a big item and these trucks and truck attachments seem to have solved that problem. THE REAL QUESTION The question of “what kind shall 1 buy?” perplexes many. There are a good many things to consider, among which is your pocket book. The de~ preciation on automobiles is heavy and must be taken into consideration. ‘What kind of roads will you have to haul over? 'What have you got to haul to the market? The size of your family is another important item as the value of the automobile for attend- ing farmers’ club meetings, creamery picnics and for general visiting around, can not be overestimated. We live too much by ourselves often times and an automobile is a great mean of get- ting better acquainted with our neigh- bors. It is probably true that every farmer could use an automobile to good ad- vantage, but it is also true that many farmers could - use ' something which called for an equal investment, to. a great deal better -advantage. © Unless it can be figured out that the auto- mobile will make a returp as great or greater than the same amount of money invested elsewhere the car should not be bought. That is, would the purchasing of a car be a practical business proposition for you? ‘ What About Sorghum ? (By HOMER DIXON) “Raise Sugar Cane (Sorghum) for Feed,” is the title of a short article mailed us by a correspondent, who feels quite strongly for sorghum as a practical proposition for farmers in North Dakota. His reasons are stated as follows: “One thing that holds back stock raising in North Dakota is the matter of fodder. Straw alone is not enough to bring cattle through the winter in good condition. Grain now is expensive feed and hay is becoming more scarce every year. Therefore, cattle as a rule are thin in the spring and it takes several months of pasture to put the stock in a thrifty condition. If this condition can be improved so that an abundance of fodder, more nourishing and palatable than straw and hay, can be grown on a small area, we shall go a long way toward a solution of this problem. Such a fodder we have in-sugar cane.” % Our correspondent also states that many farmers in Minnesota are mak- ing use of this forage every year with good results, and that it is not neces- sary to have a silo, where they can raise this fodder. EXPERIENCE WITH SORGHUM The writer was working on a Red River valley farm the summer of 1915, and after we had been able to drain the water off from the land we discov- ered that 45 acres of our corn had been drowned out. The owner of the farm had heard of kaffir corn, which is another form of sorghum, and de- cided to give it a tryout. He planted about 15 acres of it and was very well pleased with the result. ‘We left the farm before it was time to harvest the crop, but quote from the owner as follows: “The sugar cane that you asked about made splendid growth and I used it all for ensilage and liked it very much. I raised some more the past season and we are using it at the pres- ent time and like it fine. In fact any kind of green feed in the line of corn should be put in the silo, which is the proper place for it. We have had good success in feeding it to all kinds of stock and-never have had any bad re- sults. We feed it to everything and I would feed it to the hired girl if we had one.” ‘We know that this farmer winters a number of sheep and he states in another part of his letter that they are coming along with their lambs in fine shape and he has not got a ewe on the farm that has lambed, but what is sucking a lamb. He has milked about eighteen or twenty cows until recently and we know that they were fed on this silage a good part of the winter of 1915-16. RESULTS AT THE A. C. It is a fact, however, -that the sorghums have been tested out at the North Dakota Agricultural college and in no cases have given the results se- cured with corn. Grain sorghums are grown chiefly in those regions where the rainfall is low, namely the region lying south of Nebraska, although we realize that there will be a constant endeavor to move: that region north- ward. 2 Prof. O. O. Churchill of the North " Dakota Agricultural college, states: “There is no real reason why North Dakota farmers should try to intro- duce this‘new crop, as the corn does TEN RN RS L R kota. It will start growth much earlier in the spring and vyields just ‘as heavily; it is just as valuable for feed- ing purposes; it makes just as good silage. Corn is the equal of the sorghums in all respects in North Da- kota and in several ways it is superior. “The sorghums will do better in the southern part of Minnesota and es- pecidlly on the lighter, sandier soils, which warm up earlier in the spring. ‘Where the sorghums are successful the crops will be very similar to corn and the fodder will be used in the same way and will have approximately ihe same value. - : “We may safely state, therefore, that the sorghums have no place in North Dakota at this time, although, of course, I realize that this statement will be disputed by some few people since now and then in very favorable years and on light, sandy soil,'a fair degree of success may be met with.”> CORN IS BEST, SAYS DIXON _Personally, we believe that every ef- fort should be made to get a good stand of fodder corn, before attempt- ing the sorghum. It is true that the sorghums meet a dry land condition, but where that condition is not to be contended with, we think that the corn would prove the best in the long run. It is acclimated and specialists have been at work for years, to secure hardy strains for this section. e ‘Corn will yield as heavily and ac- cording to the very latest fihalysis of digestible nutrients is richer than sorghum in proteins and carbohydrates, There are times, however, when sorghums, being a fairly rapid growing crop, might be used to distinct ad- vantage in securing a forage supply not suffer from drouth in North Da- - for the winter,