Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-07-26

CHcuS lie, ana when EOu Moore 5
great circus and museum left here,
d, Wherefore laid aside the plain
garb of the lumber man; silently folded
his tent one dark night, and slid out to
join the combination At this iuncture
we are so overcome with tender emo
ton, that we beg leave to continue the
biography in our next.
Oh! dear! Give US some excitement.
Give us something new in town to break
the dreadful monotony that is devour-
ing the energy of our citizens. Just
think of it! we have bad no excitement
of any kind since July 4. Poor old
Platteville is lying on its back in the
dust, with its tees turned up, being
scorched by the sun, and moaning for
a change of some kind. Give us a
change of some kind. Give us circus,
ii we can get nothing else, for maybe
the sight of big tents with banners fly
ing and the strains of the old familiar
circus tunes, will revive us once again.
If it would not seem to be immodest,
we would say that nice shower of
rain would salt us, almost as well as
anything else. At any rate, let US have
change and one for the better, right
away.
Harvesting is now in full blast and
the sharp click of the self-binder, as it
discharges the we'll bound bundle, is
heard in in the land What great
change has been brought about in the
labor of gathering in the harvest during
the last twenty years. Twenty years
ago good reliable self-rake reaper was
considered "a wonderful machine, and
when the harvester on which two men
rode to do the binding, came out. peo-
pie thought that it was really the great
est invention of the age, and that it
reduced the labor OF harvesting to the
minimum. A few years after when
they began to read and hear of self
binder they were astonished, and it was
generally supposed that the binder, if
should ever be brought to such degree
of perfection that it would do its work
accurately would be much too cum
bersome for our farms. 1t was thought
that they would do very well for the
immense fields of the Western States,
but that farmer raising less than five
hundred or thousand acres of grain,
would have no use for it, The first
year that the twine- binder was sold in
these parts, it cost about $500. Irvine
cost from twenty to thirty cents per
pound. Yet at those figures, the farm
er found it the best paying machine
that he ever brought onto his place
when he considered the amount of
grain that it saved over and above what
could have been saved by hand binding.
The accuracy with which every bundle
was bound, rendering stacking and
threshing much easier, the vast amount
of labor that it sayed him in the field,
and his family in the house, he came
at once to the conclusion that hand
binding must be soon a thing of the
past. Since the first year, the prices
for binders and Irvine have been re-
duced almost one-half and one has to
travel many miles in good farming
country, to see a farmer binding his
grain in the old-fashioned way. Years
ago the farmer and the whole family
dreaded the coming harvest, for it
meant to them weeks of the most weari-
some labor. The farmer had to look
out weeks ahead in order to obtain
help and when it was obtained and the
harvesting was in progress, he was in
constant fear lest something would turn
up and make his men leave him. The
people in the house were kept in con-
slant servitude, preparing meals and
carrying lunch to a host of men. When
the harvest was finally over the people
on the farm were completely tired out,
and if there CHANGED to be young man
or young woman among the number,
they had already concluded to leave the
farm at the first opportunity, if for
nothing more, to get out of the terrible
drudgery of harvesting. But now, how
different. The farmer gives scarcely a
thought to the labor of harvesting.
Whenever the grain is ripe, he is ready.