Power farming has proved particularly advantageous in the wheat belt of Kansas: For the best yield the land must be ploughed in Aug., when the temperature is often above 100 F. in the shade and very little work can be accomplished with horses. The tractor works as efficiently at this temperature as in winter. Moreover, the tractor can be used also for threshing, and the old practice of contract threshing has been largely superseded by the plan of four or five farmers owning a small threshing machine cooperatively and helping each other thresh their grain, each using his own tractor as the motive power. A three-plough tractor is generally recommended for a 20x36 in. grain separator. Sometimes it is necessary to get a crop into the ground very quickly, and, with a double shift of opera- tors, tractors can then be operated continuously day and night.
Interest in farm tractors increased greatly in Europe during and following the World War. In 1919 and 1920 tractor trials were held at Lincoln, England, the first under the auspices of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the second under that of the Royal Agricultural Society. The French Government in 1920 paid a bonus of 25 % on the purchase price of tractors of domestic manu- facture and 10% on tractors of foreign manufacture. During the war the British, French and Italian Governments contracted for lar^e numbers of farm tractors in the United States. In 1919 there was an international tractor demonstration and test at Sabyholm, Denmark, in which Danish, Swedish, German, British and Ameri- can tractors were entered. Several demonstrations were also held in France in the years immediately following the World War; French engineers paid particular attention to tractors for use in vineyards, which must be very narrow. Those for use in orchards, on which a number of American manufacturers specialize, must be very low. A somewhat distinct type is the garden tractor for the cultivation of row crops and general work in market gardening. The Beenian, the first model of this type, was put on the market in 1915, and in 1919 about half a dozen other .tractors of this type were brought out. For rubber-tired road tractors, see MOTOR VEHICLES; for artillery tractors, see ARTILLERY.
BIHLIOGRAPHY. Barsch, Motorpfluge (1919); Page 1 , The Modern Gas Tractor (1917); Sherwood, Tlie Farm Tractor Handbook (1919); Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Report on the Tractor Trials held at Lincoln (London, 1919, 1920); U.S. Department of Agriculture, The Gas Tractor in Eastern Farming (1918), Tractor Exlvrience in Illinois (1918) and The Farm Tractor in the Dakotas (1919)- (P. M. H.)
TRACY, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1830-1915), American soldier (see 27.127), died in New York City Aug. 6 1915.
TRADE BOARDS. An important factor in the regulation of wages in England is now represented by the functioning of the trade boards. The Trade Boards Act of 1909 was passed, as a result of considerable agitation on behalf of workers who were employed under " sweated " conditions, with a view to providing machinery by which their wages might be raised to a more satisfactory level.
This Act applied at once to four trades, namely: (i) readymade and wholesale bespoke tailoring and any other branch of tailoring in which the board of trade considered the system of manufacture was generally similar to that prevailing in the wholesale trade; (2) the making of boxes or parts thereof made wholly or partially of cardboard, chip, or similar material; (3) machine-made lace and net finishing and the mending or darning operations of lace curtains and lace finishing; (4) hammered and dollied or tommied chain- making. Provision was further made that the Act should be applied to other trades by Provisional Order if the board of trade was satisfied that the rate of wages prevailing in any branch of those trades was exceptionally low as compared with that in other em- ployments. These Provisional Orders required confirmation by Parliament.
In addition to the trades originally specified four trades were 1 subsequently added under the Provisional Order procedure, making 1 a total of eight. The small number of trades to which the Act of 1909 was applied was due partly to the fact that the procedure by Provisional Order was necessarily a slow and cumbrous process, and
- partly to the severe limits imposed by the provision that a board
1 could only be established where wages were exceptionally low.
In 1918 an amending Act largely extended the scope of the previous Act. During the World War the whole basis of the payment of wages to women had been altered by the Orders made by the Minister of Munitions under Section 6 of the Munitions Act of 1916; and, for a number of women largely in excess of a million, the provisional rate at the conclusion of the war was in the neighbourhood of ?d. to 8d. per hour. It was recognized that if upon the return of peace the protection offered by the Munitions Acts was suddenly withdrawn a reduction of wages of a very disturbing character might ensue, and that it was desirable that the large number of persons, both men and women,
in the unorganized trades, should have a similar measure of protection to that which had been already offered by the Trade Boards Act to those whom it covered.
The new Act made two amendments of a far-reaching character:
(a) The minister was empowered to apply it to any specified trade " if he is of opinion that no adequate machinery exists for the effective regulation of wages throughout the trade, and that accord- ingly, having regard to the rates of wages prevailing in the trade, or any part of the trade, it is expedient that the Act should apply to that trade."
(6) In place of the procedure for application of the Acts by Provisional Order, provision was made for the making of a special Administrative Order, the latter a shorter process than the former, although revision of the minister's proposals by Parliament is still provided for.
Further amendments made by the new Act extended the powers of trade boards with regard to the classes of rates of wages which they could fix, and gave them also the right of requiring Government departments to consider any proposal concerning the conditions in their trade which they might care to make.
The effect of the new Act was to make the Acts applicable to a much larger area of industry and to render legislation no longer a means of protection for sweated trades only. This extension of the scope of the Trade Boards Acts, apart from its desirability, having regard to the special conditions likely to prevail during the reconstruction period, was recommended also by the Com- mittee on the Relations between Employers and Employed, presided over by Mr. J. H. Whitley, M.P. This Committee subsequently recommended that, while joint industrial councils should be established for trades which were sufficiently organized to control their own wage matters, it was equally desirable that trade boards should be established for trades which had not yet reached that degree of organization on both sides which would make possible the complete observance of agreements arrived at between organizations. It was made clear that there was no conflict between the two forms of joint organization, and that each was adapted to and intended for a different degree of or- ganization in the trades concerned. In practice the principle indicated by the Whitley Committee was the guiding principle in the establishment of joint industrial councils and trade boards.
A rapid extension of existing trade boards followed, with the result that, at the end of 1920, 49 additional trade boards for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland had been set up in the following trades, covering about 33- million persons:
Dressmaking and women's light
clothing.
Grocery and provisions. Hat, cap and millinery. Milk distributive.
Great Britain. Boot and shoe repairing. Brush and broom. Button making. Coffin furniture and cerement
making. Corset. Cotton waste. Flax and hemp spinning and
weaving. Fur.
General waste. Hair, bass and fibre. Jute spinning and weaving. Laundry. Linen and cotton handkerchief,
etc.
Made-up textiles. Paper bag. Perambulator and invalid
carriage. Pin, hook and eye and snap
fastener.
1 I Retail bespoke tailoring, j Readymade and wholesale be- [ spoke tailoring. Rope, twine and net. Stamped or pressed metal wares. Tobacco. Toy. Wholesale mantle and costume.
England and Wales. Aerated waters.
Scotland. Aerated waters. Dressmaking and women's light
clothing.
Hat, cap and millinery. Milk distributive. Grocery and provisions.
Ireland.
Aerated waters. Boot and shoe repairing. Brush and broom. Dressmaking and women's light
clothing. Flax and hemp spinning and
weaving. General waste. Hat, cap and millinery. Laundry. Linen and cotton handkerchief,
etc.
Milk distributive. 1 I Retail bespoke tailoring, j Readymade and wholesale { bespoke tailoring. Rope, twine and net. Tobacco. Wholesale mantle and costume.
1 Previously the Readymade Tailoring Trade Board (1909). 1919 two new boards were constituted.
In
