The Rotolactor was invented for one particular kind of huge dairy. But
farmers everywhere like to have good machinery to do special jobs.
For hilly country, there’s a plow that has one of its blades higher than
the other so it can work on a slope. There are chisel plows that dig up
hard soil by clawing at it with strong steel fingers.
One farmer in Texas decided to make his tractor do the plowing all by
itself, after he had driven it once around the field to give it a start.
He invented a guide
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
wheel that went ahead of the tractor in the furrow he had made. Now the
guide led the tractor around in a spiral that got narrower and narrower
until at last it stopped in the center of the plowed field. Another
[Illustration]
Texan, with a bigger field and more machines, had a larger idea. He set
three tractors loose without drivers, one behind the other. Away they
went, round and round. If one traveled too fast and caught up with the
one ahead, they stopped. The only work he had to do was go out and start
them up again!
There have even been experiments in guiding plows by remote control
radio, the way airplanes can be guided. The farmer just sits under a
tree and pushes buttons in a control box.