even though it had but two cylinders, would make twenty miles an hour
and run sixty miles on the three gallons of gas the little tank held and
is as good to-day as the day it was built. The development in methods of
manufacture and in materials has been greater than the development in
basic design. The whole design has been refined; the present Ford car,
which is the "Model T," has four cylinders and a self starter--it is in
every way a more convenient and an easier riding car. It is simpler than
the first car. But almost every point in it may be found also in the
first car. The changes have been brought about through experience in the
making and not through any change in the basic principle--which I take
to be an important fact demonstrating that, given a good idea to start
with, it is better to concentrate on perfecting it than to hunt around
for a new idea. One idea at a time is about as much as any one can
handle.

It was life on the farm that drove me into devising ways and means to
better transportation. I was born on July 30, 1863, on a farm at
Dearborn, Michigan, and my earliest recollection is that, considering
the results, there was too much work on the place. That is the way I
still feel about farming. There is a legend that my parents were very
poor and that the early days were hard ones. Certainly they were not
rich, but neither were they poor. As Michigan farmers went, we were
prosperous. The house in which I was born is still standing, and it and
the farm are part of my present holding.

There was too much hard hand labour on our own and all other farms of
the time. Even when very young I suspected that much might somehow be
done in a better way. That is what took me into mechanics--although my
mother always said that I was born a mechanic. I had a kind of workshop
with odds and ends of metal for tools before I had anything else. In