The Harvester World: Volume 2, number 4, January 1911

              The Harvester World

23

ADVANTAGES OF  GASOLINE POWER OVER
STEAM POWER ON THE FARM

By C, O. Aspenwall
In limited space it is not possible to go into all of the
advantages that gasoline has over steam as an element
in producing power for the farm, so I shall confine this
article to three of the principal reasons^safety, cost,
and convenience.
Safety should be considered first; because any power that is not safe, especially as to life and property, is dear at any cost. Many is the time that the steam boiler has exploded on the farm for the want of water, a joint weakened by   rust, or a   stuck safety valve.
Our New 4S-H.P, Tractor at Work in the Field.   Picture Sent in by F. O. Wilson
Often this happened while all hands were at dinner, the engineer running the risk that the boiler contained enough water to last until he got back. No such thing is possible with the gasoline engine. Setting fire to buildings, grain stacks, or dry meadows, which is often done by sparks from the steam engine, never happens with the gasoline engine, so the danger along that line is done away with entirely.
With the heavy steam traction engine it is dangerous and sometimes impossible to cross the average bridge on country roads without breaking through, and the careful operator always carries planks with his outfit and planks the bridge ahead of the engine, which is an expense and takes time, while the gasoline tractor is so much lighter that this is unnecessary.
The cost per horse-power-hour or the cost for doing a certain piece of work is so much cheaper with a gaso¬ line engine than with a steam engine that there is hardly a comparison. The difference in cost varies, of course, in different parts of the country, depending on the cost for fuel and accessibility to water; but under the most favorable conditions for the steam engine it is generally conceded to be far behind the gasoline engine in the expense necessary to produce a certain horse power, and, next to safety, this is the main feature of the ad¬ vantages of gasoline over steam as a farm power.
In steam engines of practically the most perfect of the external combustion type, twenty-five per cent of the heat of combustion which is generated in the fire¬ box or furnace is wasted by radiation and by loss up the smoke stack or chimney. The water in a boiler is seldom heated to more than 400" F. because at that tem¬ perature it has a pressure of nearly 2S0 lbs. per square inch. The products of combustion in the fire-box have a temperature seldom less than 2000" F. So you see there is a very large drop of temperature as the heat passes through the boiler plates, consequently, a steam engine not only loses much of its heat up the smoke stack, butisabletoconvert only a small part of the heat that goes to the engine into work. The ordinary steam engine does not convert into work more than from 6 to 10 per cent of the heat generated by combustion of the fuel. while in the gasoline engine, the fuel (gasoline) burned
in the cylinder gives a temperature of from 2000" F. to 3000" F., so the temperature range is very large and consequently the engine can be more efficient — that is, can convert a larger proportion of the heat of combustion into work than in a steam plant.
A good gasoline engine will convert about 30 per cent of the heat of combustion into work, or from two to three times as much as the best steam engine.
While convenience is considered separate from cost, it goes a long ways towards making up cost when you consider the time necessary to prepare the steam engine for work and the taking care of it after the work is done. In some respects, the gasoHne engine is very much like the steam engine. The purpose of both is to convert heat of combustion of some fuel into work. In the steam engine, the combustion takes place entirely outside of the working cylinder, and the heat of com¬ bustion is transmitted by conduction through the walls of the fire-box to the water which does the work; while in the gasoline engine, combustion takes place inside the engine itself so that the products of combustion act directly on the piston, from which point the power in both engines is delivered about alike through recipro¬ cating piston, connecting rod, and crank to a revolving shaft and wheels. You will see by this, that the gaso¬ line engine has been simphfied a great deal over the steam engine, doing away with fire-box, boiler, and water, except a small quantity used for cooling purposes.
Light work, such as running a cream separator, washing machine, or grindstone, can be done by hand more quickly and with as little effort as is required to get up steam in the steam engine, while the gasoline engine is under full headway with a turn or two of the fly-wheel. With the larger engines, such as are used for plowing, threshing, shredding, sawing wood, etc., see what is necessary. In the morning with a steam engine you are obliged to fire up for an hour or two before you have steam enough to start, then depend all day on a man and team for water and sometimes another man and team for wood or coal. It is necessary that the engineer stay around the engine, and if it is freezing weather, visit the engine once or twice during the night to fix the fire. All this is unnecessary with the gasoline engine. The engineer can spend nine-tenths of his time running the "other end" of the rig. When noon or night comes, he is ready to stop and leave the engine without any extra work.
Tractor Sold at Omaha, Neb.   Ooal Bleau at the Helm
As a matter of portability, it is neither convenient nor safe to move a steam engine of small size from one place to another on the farm where it may be needed; but a gasoline engine mounted on a truck is easily and quickly moved from one place to another, and may be used for cutting and grinding feed in the barn, sawing wood in the wood lot, running the washing machine, cream separator, and churn at the house, and pumping water at the well.