A man who had been tied in a great city all his life made his first visit the other day to an up-to-date farm. He was so surprised at what he saw that he wrote a letter describing his emotions. Some of it is worth quoting because it shows a picture of the modern farm as it was cast upon the eye of a man who had never seen it before.

"I was whisked from the railway station in a big touring car, through beautiful country. Then we turned up a flower and shrub lined concrete driveway, and stopped by a home, capacious and modern. Inside I found electric lights, electric iron and bathroom with running water.

The Woman on the Farm at Last Enjoying the Benefit of Labor-Saving Machines.

This small mounted kerosene engine runs the washing machine, pump, cream separator and churn. It is easily drawn about from place to place by hand where its energy is needed to lighten the housework.

"I found that the good man of the house had his own electric light and water plant, run by kerosene engines, that his cows were milked automatically, that he pulled his plows, harrows, drills, manure spreader and binder with a kerosene tractor, that his hired men went about the farm doing everything as they rode on some machine, that he went to church and town in an automobile, and that he delivered the products of his farm to market with a motor truck. Everything was managed like a factory. Things went forward with order and with assurance. Everyone was busy and happy."

This is an optimistic picture of one of our best farms, but compare it with the

*Illustrations by courtesy of International Harvester Company of America, unless otherwise indicated best that could be found only a few hundred years ago. The best farmer of those days held all the land for miles around and lived in a castle in the middle of it. The castle was dark and cold and was made of rough stones fitted together. The poor farmers were serfs and came two or three days out of a week to their master's house to work. Those were the great days of their lives, for then they ate of the master's food.

Food - that was the problem of those long tired years which dragged through the ages, when nearly everyone was a farmer, and a farmer with crude tools held in his hands. Time was when practically the whole world went to bed hungry and rose again in the morning craving food, just as half the millions of India do today because they do with their hands what a machine should do.

People in the hungry, unfed ages grew so used to privation that even the philosophers accepted sorrow and woe as a matter of course and dilated upon their virtues for chastening the human soul. "It is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of mirth," said one of the prophets, and such words brought comfort to the hungry, miserable millions who had to mourn and go hungry whether it was to their advantage or not.

Today the years glide by like pleasant pictures. We are fed, busy and happy. We almost let the dead bury their dead today while the living drive forward their tasks, achieving as much in a year as the old ages did in twenty. We have learned to seed ourselves and the food fills our bodies and brains with energy which must find expression in useful accomplishment. "Blessed is he who has found his work we have Record to do," we say nowadays, "but thrice blessed is he who has found a machine to do it for him."

The Motor Truck May be Used by the Farmer Even in Hilly and Mountainous Places.

This photograph was taken near the summit of Pike's Peak.

The Reaping Hook was the First Implement Used for Harvesting Grain of which.

This pictures the reaping hook as still used in India.

Thread your way back through history to the time when the slender lives of men expanded into full and useful employment, and you will find that, so far as raising the world's food is concerned, it all began with the invention of the reaper in only the last century. It is interesting to know something of the precarious entry of this machine and something of the dark background from which it emerged.

The Scythe is a Development of the Reaping Hook The blade was made larger and the handle longer so two hands could be used..