930. The Sears and Roebuck catalog for 1928 offered an electric milker
for $145 (including a 3/4 horsepower engine) and a harrow attachment to
be used with a tractor for $60. Cream separators ranged from $42.95 to
$100 without a motor, which could cost as much as $30.00. "Don't make a
horse out of yourself," the catalog cajoled. But with the additional
cost of parts, maintenance and fuel, a farmer earning only $1,000
annually could at best hope to equip his farm only gradually.[103]

To offset costs, farmers retained their old tools while gradually
acquiring up-to-date equipment. An inventory of the equipment on a
fifty-acre farm shows the mix of old and new owned by the typical farmer
of this transition period. In 1928 the farm of George W. Kidwell near
Hunter was equipped with harnesses, a two-horse plow, and blacksmithing
tools, but also a gasoline engine, an oil drum and automobile.[104]

Ultimately, of course, the machines were of tremendous advantage to the
large and specialized dairyman. They speeded and streamlined the
twice-daily milkings, efficiently strained and separated the milk while
warm. Later, the machines cooled the milk to the optimum temperature
required to retard spoilage. This latter development was an especially
noteworthy improvement over the old well or ice-water coolings.

Similar advances were made with electric incubators and chicken feeders
for poultry specialists and improved spraying equipment for orchardists.
Warren McNair was a pioneer in the Floris neighborhood in the use of
mechanized hatcheries, establishing one which was powered by coal before
World War I. Like the dairy equipment, poultry technology offered
efficiency and improved production.[105]

[Illustration: A tractor-drawn drill which could plant four rows at a
time. This snapshot shows a black agricultural laborer planting
soybeans, which were used as high protein livestock feed. Photo in
Annual Report of County Agent H. B. Derr, 1922, Virginiana Collection,
Fairfax County Public Library.]

[Illustration: Wilson D. McNair aboard a Row Crop 70 tractor, featuring
rubber tires, c. 1940. In the background is the farm's chicken house.
Growing poultry and eggs was the specialty of this farmer. Photo
courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder.]

Along with a slow-growing recognition of the advantages of automated
farm equipment came a quantum leap in knowledge of the agricultural
sciences. Some experimentation in plant and animal bree