The record-union., 1892-09-02
FARM And ORCHARD.
What Inventors Have Done to
Tighten Farmers Work.

Distemper in Colts and Horses-Nature
of the Disease-The Champion Liar
Treatment of Apricot Treasure
Death to Ants-MiscellaneousI Items.
As compared with other industries in
regard to the amazing development of the
last few years, agriculture has no occasion
to stake back seat" For while it is the
first of industries in importance, it has
been helped and aided by the brain and
hand work of all the others, and the
mechanic, the inventor, the chemist-in
fact, every man whose hand or mind Is
engaged in work of any kind is either
directly or indirectly a contributor to the
farmer.
Fifty years ago, when it may be said
the present era of amazing mechanical
development began, the farmer had
poor plow, made chiefly of wood, the hoe
and the scythe only for his tools, and very
little else was needed, after the ak, to run
farm. Then the farmer was everything
for himself, and was much as packhorse
might be compared to the flying railroad
train or the great steamship of to-day.
But about that time the inventor and the
mechanic began to put in their work, and
improved plows led the van of wonder
full course of Improvement. Then came
the seed drill, the corn planter, and other
like machines for sowing and planting
the seed in the better prepared soil.
The increased crops called for some
thing better than the scythe, the sickle,
and the grain cradle, and these were
quickly displaced by the moving ma
chine, the horse-rake, and later by the
hay loader and the hay elevator, by which
the crop is now put in the barn without
the touch of a hand. The harvester, inn
proved year by year, has led to the self
binder, machine as intricate and ettec-
tive as the woman's sewing machine, and
which goes through the great wheat fields
with its wide swath, cuts the grain,
gathers it, and binds il into sheayes as
nimbly and knots the twine as tightly as
the strongest human fingers can do, and
then tosSes the sheaf aside, taking twenty
acres for its days work, and thus doing
the work of twenty men. And thus with
The gang plow, the modern harrow, the
seed drill, and the self binding harvester,
the wheat is grown for thirteen cents a
bushel or one-eighth the cost of the
former method of work, the whole cost
of the grain being now reduced to that of
fifty years ago.
Farming is not now clodhopping. The
man rides and merely guides his ma
chine, holding the reins, as the engineer
the lever, in his hands; and he may, if he
will, hitch the locomotive to the plows
and cover twenty-five acres day. The
perfection of machinery is now almost
complete, for machines are in use on
which the driver does nothing but guide
it while boy feeds it with plants, and a
big finger takes these and sets them in
the ground, and others press down the
soil, while something else spills a quart
of water on the plant, and a hundred
plants are thus set while the story of it is
read. Or another takes the whole pota-
toes and cuts them, and drops and covers
the cuttings and a quantity of fertilizer
all ready for the young plants. Thus the
are planted, or may be, at less than one
tenth of the former cost and with ten
times the rapidity.
And the harvested crop is taken in
hand, so to speak, by machinery, is sep
arated from the straw, cleaned, drawn
into spouts, stored in elevators, run into
cars, carried 1000 miles in the time it
formerly occupied in carriage for hun
dred, and is in constant stream like a
river pours itself out over the breadth Of
continent. And it is never touched by
the hand of man, except that the engi-
neer who controls the whole work
touches magic wand, which sets in mo-
ton all the various machinery by which
the work is done. And it is for this that
railroads have been built, reaching out
gigantic arms embracing the whole
world, and gathering in all the wealth of
field and farm. The powerful steam
ships, by which the ocean is transformed
into mere way for other railroads, are
but different vehicles for all the commerce
set IN motion by the new agriculture, as
different from the old as the reasoning
animal of the present is from the original
germ from which by gradual evolution
he has grown to the ability to originate
and conduct these vast enterprises which
make up the work of mankind of the
present day.
But as the soil is brought under culture
and the wealth of it is drawn upon, it it
self has TO be fed, and these drafts repaid.
And the chemist and even the miner,
and the smelter ofiron, and the men who
dig into the bowels of the earth for salt
and other minerals are busy contributing
to these needs of the soil. The use of
artificial fertilizers and the manufacture
of them are by no means Of small account
lin this category. Millions of tons of
phosphates from various sources are
gathered, and not small part of them is
procured from the Stag of the iron furna-
ceS, and farmers owe that much at least
ito the skillful inventors of new and i'm
proved methods of making iron and steel,
by which the injurious phosphoric acid
is taken from the iron and saved for the
use of the farmers in growing increased
crops.
And the potash, which is needed to re-
place the thousands of tons of it re-
moved from the land each year, in the
form of wheat and other food crops, is
now almost wholly supplied by the salt
mines, of which it is refuse and waste
otherwise. In fact there is not an in
dustry which has any refuse or waste
that does not supply something for the
use of the farmer. He feeds the world,
but the world is contributing it's share of
work and material to enable him to do
this. The mutual dependence of man
upon man, and interest upon interest, is
not by any means TO be ignored in this
connection, for as each becomes more
highly developed 1t is perceived how
each one is called upon to assist the
other, and the more intricate the new
methods are the more it is that mutual
aid becomes an absolute necessity
In a thousand ways the intelligent
work of brain and hand helps the farmer
and enables him to supply food and
clothing to the world all the more
cheaply for this help. The garden is
cultivated by variety OF labor-saving
tools, the dairy is completely remodeled
by new inventions of the most surprising
kind. Among these the cream separator
and the butter extractor are the most
startling in their novelty. A rapidly ro-
tating drum spinning around and hum
ming with 5000 revolutions every min
ute, by the mere slight difference in the
specific gravity of the milk and the
cream, causes these to separate, and the
cream falling into another drum is
quickly gathered into butter. Thus the
many previous operations between the
milk and its final pr0duct arc doOe ayyou