American tractors may be used to solve the problem of agricultural reconstruction in Europe after World War I
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Title (Dublin Core)
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American tractors may be used to solve the problem of agricultural reconstruction in Europe after World War I
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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Title: A Cure for "Shell-Pox"
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Subtitle: How the crater fields of France may be reclaimed by American machinery
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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THE devastated farms of Europe may be smoothed out
and put under cultivation again by the same power that
helped destroy them. American ingenuity, which gave the
Allied armies the “caterpillar” tractor to haul their great
guns, has given Western farmers a big-scale land-leveler that
‘may be the solution of the vast problem of agricultural re-
construction wherever heavy artillery has fought.
Thousands of American tractors that were used on the
western front will probably never return to the United
States and England, at least not until the battle-scarred soil
has been put back in condition to support life.
California, in the person of Benjamin Holt, gave the world
the combined harvester, which cuts, threshes, and sacks
grain at one operation; the sage-brush plow and rake, which
has cleared enormous areas of desert land, subject to irriga-
tion; and a huge land-leveler, which has flattened out the
surface inequalities of these areas and so fitted them for the
easy distribution of water. It was a baffling California soil
condition that inspired Holt also to produce the “cater-
pillar” tractor, which
supplied the power
for the other imple-
ments.
The land-leveler is
remarkable for its size
and ruggedness. A
heavy scraper blade,
capable of carrying
the contents of two
big dump-wagons, is
mounted on a strong
frame supported by
two wide-tired wheels.
Theblade is raised and
lowered by a rack and
pinion. The pinion shaft may be operated either by
a large hand wheel or a belt drive from the main axle.
The great guns which stood hub to hub at Chateau-
Thierry and smashed the last German drive will, let
us hope, have nothing more to do for generations.
But the tractors diverted from American farms, like
the Yanks themselves, are ready to lay aside war
equipment and help to rebuild Europe.
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1919-03
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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79
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public domain (Google digitized)
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Davide Donà
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Marco Bortolami (editor)
Popular Science Monthly, v. 94, n. 3, 1919
