VOL. LXI
PUBLIC LIBRARY
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INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 18, 1906.
NO. 33
FARM RAPID TRANSIT.
Evolution   of   the  Automobile   and   the
Wild-Eyed Chauffeur.
Is the  Power  Road Wagon   to  Become
Popular?
Nobody feared that the noble horse was
to te superseded by the road wagon propelled by electricity and gasoline. That
wns not the trouble nor cause of the bitter oppositon to the auto.        It was the
along and took the wounded man to his
home. Who was the auto driver? He
came from South Bend and that was all
thnt could be learned.
These are but incidents of scores which
are occuring constantly in this and other
States, ns reported from time to time.
Wns it any wonder that farmers began to
carry tlieir guns in their wagons and buggies when they started on the public roads,
as people of burglar-ridden city homes put
them under their pillows? They felt it a
duty to potect their lives and property
from the wantonness of these road-fiends.
■
Automobile.— First Period.
wild-eyed chauffeur driving the carmine
specter, burnished in brass and with fantastic trimmings, and which went panting and leaping at the rate of twenty to
thirty miles an hour, pell mell over the
rough country roads, as if the driver owned the right of way, and as much as to say
to the horse and buggy, "get out of the
way, the horse's day is passed—look at
me." That is what nettled people on the
public road, and it was surely enough to
nettle them.
An exciting incident reported of this intruder which occurred in this State was in
Tippecanoe county, on a Wea prairie road.
One of these auto drivers came dashing
down the road meeting a lady driving a
spirited horse, the auto wheezing and
panting, never checking, and the horse
and buggy were dashed into the ditch,
throwing the lady out, breaking her arm,
and wrecking the buggy to the amount of
forty dollars for repairs. Who was the
auto driver? AH that could be learned
wns that it came from the direction of
Lafayette. The farmer had to pay for
setting the broken limb and for buggy repairing. In what did that incident differ from the burglar entering the house ia
the dark and escaping with his stolen
booty? Nothing except in the different
Quality of the crime.
Then came a report of a similar affair
which occurred on the road near South
Bend. In this incident the auto was
driving at twenty-five miles an hour, and
With its screaming compressed air horn
passed a wagon and two horses at a sharp
turn in a narrow road, tearing a hind
wheel from the wagon and causing the
horses to run, nnd otherwise wrecking the
wagon, killing one of the horses and
breaking the driver's leg. The auto
never halted,    but good Samaritans came
It is a new and deadly enemy they are
meeting on the public roads, made upon
the lands donated from their own farms
and built by the sweat of their faces. The
public nnd their neighbors were indeed
welcome to the use of the roads, but not
at the expense of their property, and of
the lives of themselves and families. And
so the war goes on. Who can blame
them? No one. Who has the temerity
to defend the wild-eyed chauffeur? None
The auto-fiend simply runs away with his
machine and hides. The farmers pay
for wagon and buggy repairs, bind up
broken limbs and bury their dead, slain
on the roads.
When Will the Change Come.
That is the query in the minds of thousands in peril when using the public roads.
It will not down. Has the demand for
rapid transit overtaken the supply of
horses? Is there such a dearth of labor
as to require men to do what two or three
formerly did? Is this desire for rapid
movement an extension of the other systems of Inbor-saving devices? If so, it
may be answered that in the case of steam
railways in superseding stage coaches,
electric interurban roads in supplementing steam roads, modern harvesters in replacing the old reaping hooks and grain
cradles, and of the other modern labor-
saving devices, so much life and property
were not destroyed in introducing them. It
need not be so now in the changes going
on for more rapid movement. The fault
lies with the senseless drivers of these
modern road wagons. The courts are
recognizing this fact. In New York,
Ohio, Indiana and other States, the
courts are beginning to make examples of
these drivers by convicting them of their
crimes, fining them and sending some to
prison.       Perhaps in this way we are to
be led out of the prevailing dangers ou
the roads. If this rapid travel is desirable and necessary in our modern civilization, all classes of people are entitled to it,
nnd under laws requiring proper care and
judgment the automobiles may yet come
loto favor. The scarcity of labor on tlie
farm is perhaps felt more than anywhere
else. The farmer himself is greatly
taxed for time iu which to look after his
farm and market his products. Here
and there on ihis account, farmers are
beginning t< se power wagons. His
butter    ai. *rishable    fruits and
vegetables, ig    him  the  most
money,  must   . 1.      He has his
town   and   city but   he   can't
spare a whole da. irket in the
old way, for his time most val
ualle.        To  deliver  t.i to  his
customers he has from fj
the balance of the day nn. t
superintending the farm, or on
vator, or running the harvester,
How is   he to do so   much?     By
movements is the only way..      I!i
can  he  afford  it?      Pretty  soon he
haul corn, nnd apples, and potatoes, ajd
sugar beets and other farm stuff to some
neighborhood or co-operative farm factory
and  have  them  manufactured  iuto
tinl alcohol.        Some big factory wi
be making autos and power road v
at reasonable prices.      Then at 5 a. m.,
at a 20 mile clip he can do his marketing
and be home nt 7:30 for breakfast and the
farm    duties.        Thus  the    scarcity    of
farm labor may be overcome,    at least in
part, and time will be economized.      By
that time the auto and road drivers will,
through court fines and other punishment,
become more sensible,   and the few horses
on the road will become familiar with the
power wagons.
And so, as steam railways superseded
stages, and interurban electrics supplemented the awfully burdened steam roads
mony and brotherly love. We all come
through great tribulations, but all the
same we get there.
"First the blade, then the ear, then the
full grown corn in the ear" is the natural
order. The world moves forward in its
industrial energies much as in everything
else. Forward movements are often ill-
timed and in their first stages imperfections appenr aud are made worse by mismanagement. These cause sweeps backward and forward, like the ancient travels
in the wilderness. Leaders fall by the
way and perish, but if the principles involved are right nothing can stop the final
consummation. And so there is coming to
meet the demand great competition in the
production of facilities to cheapen rapid
transit to the isolated farmer, who has
neither steam nor electric roads passing
his door, and the present monopoly in fuel
for this purpose will be overcome by the
use of the raw products of the farm out
of which it is to be made.
Ihe Auto Market  Wagon.
owner of a big poultry farm a few
ii Buffalo,  N. Y., who makes a
three times a week over the gravel road
at the rate of 20 miles an hour. The
farm is finely situated for poultry, with an
abundance of good water, and is divided
off into lots and fields in which to run the
chicks, 100 or more in a lot, and never has
any chicken cholera or other trouble
among them. He is preparing to grow
enough alfalfa to feed them so as to afford
a rich cheap protein food, so essential for
chickens, which is to be fed with other
feeds more concentrated.
The  broilers  are  prepared   for  market
the day before marketing and put in cold
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Automobile.—Second Period.
SIP
in the nick of time, to meet the public demands, cheap industrial alcohol will probably take the place of the Standard oil
monopoly in gasoline to propel engines in
doing farm work and automobiles for the
farmers who d<5 not live on railroad and
interurban electric lines, to help him to
quickly do his marketing, take his family
to church, or to Fourth of July celebrations, and to live as much in a week as
formerly in a month, just as other people
are doing. That is the way the world
may soon be getting on to gether in har-
storage on the farm over night, and are
then whirled to market in the auto-wagon
in a few minutes at an early hour. He
finds the auto market wagon a great convenience and saves much time in marketing.
A careless driver of an auto caused the
horse and buggy driven by a lady to run
away in western Ohio a few days ago,
was arrested and fined $75 and was required to pay repairs for the broken
buggy.