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The paper treats of the service, commercial and technical aspects of the subject in turn. The author calls attention to the fact that there can be no such thing as free service, because the customer pays in the end, and gives a specific definition of service. He argues that the engineering departments should urge upon merchandising departments intelligent distribution through dealers, the stocking of an adequate supply of parts and the maintaining of a well qualified mechanical force for the purpose of making engineering development work in the form of farm power automotive apparatus effective. There is a great need for a suitable system of training mechanics for tractor service work, and there should be a definite plan to assure that men making repairs and adjustments in the field are well qualified.

To test tractors for results valuable to the user, the reliability, durability, power, economy and utility should be determined. Standard tests measuring tractor utility and reliability are impossible practically and durability tests would be an extensive project, but tractor and engine-power tests and tests of the amount of fuel required for doing a unit of work can easily be made. The University of Nebraska tests described were for belt and drawbar horsepower and miscellaneous testing for special cases. The four brake-horsepower tests adopted are stated. Tractor operating conditions are then reviewed. The drawbar horsepower tests include a 10-hr. test at the rated load of the tractor, with the governor set as in the first brake-horsepower test, and a series of short runs with the load increased for each until the engine is overloaded or the drive wheel slips excessively, to determine the maximum engine horsepower.

The best weight for a tractor of given horsepower must be a compromise based upon a mean of the many conditions to be encountered by a given machine or by different machines of the same model. While the weight logically will bear some relation to the drawbar pull, the latter in turn depends upon tractor speed. The next item is weight distribution, which requires the utmost skill of the designer; this is elaborated and diagrams are shown of tractors operating in comparatively firm and in soft ground, ascending a grade and when the drive-wheels are mired. The four-wheel-drive tractor requires a modification of the foregoing analysis and the diagrams are applied to afford a similar analysis for this type. The author's conclusion is that, while careful engineering will make the light-weight tractor of conventional type stable under most conditions, there is a possibility that any future trend toward lighter machines will open the field to other types.

The farm tractor is finding itself among the most essential of mechanical agricultural devices; the industry is young, and controlling basic factors of design are not yet completely crystallized, nor has research had its proper share in the development. Some further factors of the author's earlier article on tractor plowing speeds2 are discussed in this paper. The earlier article dealt chiefly with plowing data on the assumption that there was delivered at the drawbar of the tractor a constant horsepower. This paper starts with a normal condition of a constant engine power which is to be delivered to the crankshaft under governor control for any of the travel speeds analyzed. The tractor is considered as powered by a given brake-horsepower engine, this power being transmitted through sets of gears in which the net bearing and gear efficiency is taken to be 73 per cent.

The authors advance for discussion some important problems in the construction of airplanes for military use in this country. The functions of military airplanes designed for strategical and tactical reconnaissance, control of artillery fire and for pursuit are outlined. Problems in construction with reference to the two-propeller system, methods of reducing vibration, application of starting motors, details of the gasoline supply-system, metal construction for airplanes, flexible piping, desirable characteristics of mufflers, shock absorbers, landing gear, fire safety-devices, control of cooling-water temperature, variable camber wings, variable pitch propellers and propeller stresses, are all given consideration. The paper is concluded with suggestions for improvement in design relating to the use of bearing shims, the rigidity of crankcase castings, interchangeability of parts and better detail construction in the oiling, ignition, fuel supply and cooling systems.

The title of this paper fully indicates its scope. The author presents an intimate picture of conditions prevailing at the war front which affect the operation and maintenance of war trucks, and these two factors in turn indicate the trend that design should take. The training of the mechanical transport personnel of the Army is also gone into at some length. The English and American trucks used earlier in the war consisted of about nineteen different makes and forty-two totally different models, resulting in a very serious problem of providing spare parts and maintenance in general. In the British Army transportation comes under an Army Service Corps officer called the Director of Transport and Supplies. At the outbreak of the war these officers had had little mechanical experience, horses being employed principally. In the French Army motor vehicles were used to a greater extent before the war, under the artillery command.

The author, from a first-hand study of this engine in the laboratory of Professor Junkers, traces the progress of the developmental work, and discusses the methods of operating the engine, its present status, its application to airplanes, trucks and tractors, details of marine and stationary types, fuel, advantages of and objections to the double-piston construction, and describes at some length the various parts entering into the construction of this type of engine. In conclusion, he summarizes the fundamental advantages of the Junkers engine.