The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1881-02-03
Farm and Home.
AND USEFUL INFORMATION.
SOWING AND REAPING.

SOWING AND REAPING.
The Old Methods and the New
Some Interesting Facts.
Charles Carleton Coffin: The next
step after blowing is seeding. In
my boyhood l dropped corn-five
grains in each hill and a pumpkin
seed In every other hill.
In sowing grain travelled across
the field with a basket filled with
wheat, throwing it out by handfuls;
it required an expert to SOW evenly.
Then came the narrowing, portion
of the grain covered too deep, a
portion not covered at all, but re-
naming to be devoured by the lids.
To day the western farmer rides
behind his team, planting fifteen
acres of corn, the rows running in
both directions or with his seeder
sowing evenly twenty acres of wheat
every seed planted at a proper
depth, the seeder so graduated that
each acre shall receive q given
amount of seed-not a quart more
or less. l need not stop to dwell
upon the value of such machinery
In agriculture-it will be apparent.
Under the old way a man could
plant one acre per day. Invention
enables him to increase his acreage
twenty fold. We are to bear in
mind that only in the United States,
and TO lesser degree in England,
is such machinery employed in ag-
riculture. 1t is this use of machin-
cry which is producing wealth
among the farming community of
the western states, unparalleled in
any other age or nation.
In my boyhood we cultivated
corn by blowing between the rows
and using the hand hoe, but inven-
ton has produced an implement,
the cultivator, which SO thoroughly
does it's work that the cost of pro-
duclng corn has been reduced three
cents per bushel. The entire crop
of corn in the United States last
year was nearly l ,400,O0O,000 bush
els. The state OF Illinois produced
226,000,000 bushels, and this i'm
provement in machinery alone made
saving of six million dollars per
annum. The four states-Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois and Iowa-pro-
duced 728,000,000 bushels-more
than half the entire crop, and this
implement made a saving of more
than $23, 900 over the old meth
cd of agriculture.
During the long winter evenings
and rainy days of my early years,
the male members of the household
were doomed to the servitude of
Smelling corn-rasping the ears
against the shary edge of shovel,
or the handle of frying-pan! By
hard work, with blistering hands,
an able bodied man could shell five
bushels per day. At the present
time the farmer, by horse or steam
power, using the cobs for fuel,
shells 1900 bushels per day, at a
cost of one-half cent per bushel. A
very large portion OF the corn crop
is ted to cattle and swine upon the
ear, but if the farmers OF the four
states named were compelled to
shell the entire crop by hand they
would need to devote one hundred
days out of the 365 to that occupa
tion alone!
In harvesting, the sickle was the
implement earliest invented, and
which, down to a period within the
memory of some octogenarians, was
the only implement In the wide
world for cutting grain. In 1894
the grain cradle made its appear
ance, the product OF an invention
in Scotland. la the report of the
Scottish Highland Agricultural So
ciety we have this notice of its Ca
pability: with common sickle
seven men in ten hours reaped one
and half acres of wheat. With
the new machine one man can cut
one and one half acres in ten hours
to be raked and bound by two 9th
ers."
In English, European and Orient
al agriculture women have always
been laborers in the harvest field,
from the days Of Ruth, the fair Mo
abite, down to tue present time.
Those are delightful scenes of
the harvest fields of Old England,
which poets and painters have por-
trayed-the wide reach of golden
grain, the reapers with their sickles,
the maidens binding the sheaves-
but the poets could not portray the
aching backs, the strained muscles,
the eXhausting toll. Such scenes
never have been a feature in Amer
lean civilization, except TO a limited
degree, nor will they ever be. The
reaplng machine has taken the
place of the sickle, horses do the
work of men, and woman is eman-
cipated forever from physical toll
in the harvest field.
The first patent for a reaping ma
chine was taken out by Obed Hus
sy, of Maryland, in 1888, followed
by one granted to Cyrus McCor-
max i'll 1884; but the world heard
little OF reaplng machine TIL Io40,
when McCormak built 80. In
1852 there Was a trial of reapers
and mowers at Geneva, n. Y, at
which nine machines were exhibit
ed; but of these not one could stop
and start again in the grain without
backing. In 1855, at the French
International Exhibition, there were
French, English and American ma
chimes. The French machine did
its work in seventy two minutes,
the English in sixty SIX, the Ameri-
can in twenty-five. Since 1850
more than 100000 reaping and
moving machines have been con
structed in the United States, aud
the annual manufacture is more
than 100 600 Since 1865 large