THE author believes a more thorough understanding of the functions and use of drawbar implements is necessary. The tractor is incidental to agriculture. The implements used with tractors do the actual work and the tractor is a means to that end. Many tractors are sold on the quality of work done by the implements, and not because of their own work. Many a tractor is condemned because the implement combination is not correct. The amount of draft of plows must be thoroughly understood. Good plowing requires considerably more power than poor plowing, although done at the same depth and width. Turning the same number of square inches of furrow section will in one case require from 20 to 30 per cent more power than in another.
The tractor maker is not as familiar with the problem of hitching to implements as he should be; he feels that the implement is only incidental, can be hitched anywhere and still give good results; his principal object is to produce a tractor that will operate and pull implements. This idea is wrong. There is no one point on a tractor, either vertically or horizontally, that will serve as a hitching place for all implements and serve them equally well. It is the implement that must be given the consideration it deserves, for correct performance.
If tractor designers devoted more attention to the implements that tractors are to haul, trying to meet conditions as they are, more progress would be made, the combinations would serve the farmer better, power farming would become better established and better results would be obtained from the combination of tractors and implements.