FORD Motor Co., which makes one of every five U.S. farm tractors, is ready to try for a bigger chunk of the farm-equipment market. It will shortly put on sale its first full line of farm equipment, including combines, hay balers, corn pickers and cotton harvesters.

WESTERN Air Line's experiment with music on its airliners has worked out so well that it is thinking of putting Muzak on all first-class flights. But it has already banned / Get a Kick out of You because of its lyrics:

"Flying so high With some guy in the sky Is my idea of nothing to do"

KAISER Motors Corp., whose big Willow Run plant has been shut down ever since the Air Force canceled its contracts for C-119 Flying Boxcars (TIME, July 6), will keep the plant closed for good unless the C.I.O. Auto Workers agree to a new contract permitting a relaxation of seniority rules so that workers can be used more efficiently. President Edgar Kaiser is moving final assembly operations permanently to his Willys Motors plant at Toledo, but he hopes to use Willow Run to make parts if the union is willing to cooperate.

TV advertising has rocketed well ahead of radio totals. The Federal Communications Commission reported that while sales of TV network time increased 41% last year to $137,700,000, radio-time sales skidded 10 1/2 to $102,100,000.

FAIRCHILD Engine & Airplane Corp. is building a prototype of a new lightweight earth mover, the Transair Tractor, which it hopes will revolutionize military and civilian construction equipment. Only 22 1/2 ft. long, it weighs 13,000 Ibs. and can be carried in a C-119 Flying Boxcar. On the job, it can take on up to 40,000 Ibs. of dirt or water as ballast, do the job of a bulldozer, power shovel, or air compressor capable of running 12 pneumatic jackhammers. Fairchild, which will deliver the first model to the Army next December, hopes eventually to cut the price to $25,000 in quantity production, make a big dent in the construction-equipment market.

UNIONIZED New England textile companies will not find it so easy to move to the nonunion South following a National Labor Relations Board ruling last week. It ordered Mount Hope Finishing Co., which closed its North Dighton, Mass, plant after the C.I.O. Textile Workers won an election two years ago (TIME, Nov. 19, 1951), to rehire 690 employees it had laid off, give them traveling expenses to jobs in Mount Hope's new plant in Butner, N.C., and pay back wages of almost $4,000,000.

WEST Germany's Volkswagen company (TiME, July 20), whose little two-door sedans have made a big hit in Brazil, will shortly build a $32 million production plant near Sao Paulo. By early 1955, Volkswagen, hopes to be turning out 12,000 cars a year in Brazil, give some tough competition to Ford, which opened a $10 million assembly plant there last April.

CONGRESSIONAL approval of the bill to sell the Government's 28 synthetic-rubber plants to private industry will not bring a quick sale. It will take almost until the bill's deadline of Jan. 31, 1955 to work out a detailed sales plan, and even then, Congress could veto it.

EVEN the manufacturers are surprised by the size of the home air-conditioning boom. The industry, which had planned to make 750,000 household units this year, already has turned out almost 1,000,000, is now setting its sights for 1,300,000.

BELGIUM'S Sabena airlines began the world's first scheduled international helicopter service between Brussels and Rotterdam, soon will extend the service to Bonn, Cologne and Lille.

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