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Within a few years a farm depending solely on horse and hand power will be as much of a curiosity as a factory run by a treadmill. The farmer must either take up power or go out of business. The cost figures make this inevitable. During the war the Government made a test of a Fordson tractor to see how its costs compared with doing the work with horses.
We ran up an emergency extension to our plant at Dearborn, equipped it with machinery that was ordered by telegraph and mostly came by express, and in less than sixty days the first tractors were on the docks in New York in the hands of the British authorities. They delayed in getting cargo space, but on December 6, 1917, we received this cable: London, December 5, 1917. Fordson, F. R. Dearborn.
The figures on the tractor were taken at the high price plus freight. The depreciation and repair items are not so great as the report sets them forth, and even if they were, the prices are cut in halves which would therefore cut the depreciation and repair charge in halves. These are the figures: COST, FORDSON, $880. 3,840 acres at $880; depreciation per acre .221
Repairs for 3,840 acres, $100; per acre .026 Fuel cost, kerosene at 19 cents; 2 gal. per acre .38 1 gal. oil per 8 acres; per acre .075 Driver, $2 per day, 8 acres; per acre .25 Cost of ploughing with Fordson; per acre. .95 At present costs, an acre would run about 40 cents only two cents representing depreciation and repairs. But this does not take account of the time element.
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