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Copyright 2004 - Todd Paisley (paisley@erols.com)Last updated 21 June 2004
Army Jeep May Help Farmers at End of War
Circleville Herald - May 27, 1942
WASHINGTON, May 27 - The Army quarter-ton "jeep" may become a "plow horse after the war.
The department of agriculture has been testing two Army "jeeps", or reconnaissance cars, at the tillage machinery laboratory at Auburn, Ala., to find out whether they could be used for farm work when peace returns.
The jeeps, according to the agriculture department, "could be highly useful as supplemental power for light plowing, other field work except cultivation of row crops, and for road use."
R.B. Gray, head of the farm mechanical equipment research bureau of the department's agricultural chemistry and engineering bureau explained that the Army jeep is "too low and too narrow for the usual row-crop cultivation jobs."
"Also," the department reported, "he thinks the jeep would perform better at farm work if it were changed to give it a slightly lower gear ration and a lower hitch for plowing."
It was exaplained that the jeep was tested in farm work in the first of several experiments to determine whether war machines can be used on domestic jobs after the war.
Jeeps, it was pointed out, will be made in great numbers, and "it is probable that they will be in surplus after the war."