Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1892-09-30
FARM MACHINERY.
How .SvENTORs HAVE LIGHT
ENED FARMERS WORK.
Iabor-saving Machines in Every
Branch of Agricuiture-Con-
trast Between Fifty Years
Ago and Now.


else was needed, after the ak, to run a
farm. Then the farmer was everything
for himself, and was much as a pack
horse might be compared to the flying
railroad train or the great steamship OF
to-day. But about that time the in
ventor and the mechanic began to put in
their work, and improved plows led
the van of a wonderful course OF i'm
provement. 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, aud 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 hand. The har-
vester, improved year by year, has led to
the self-binder, machine as intricate
and effective as the womans sewing ma
chine, and which goes through the great
wheat fields with its wide swath, cuts
the grain, gathers it, and binds it into
sheaves as nimbly and knots the Irvine
as tightly as the strongest human fingers
can do, and then losses the sheaf aside,
taking twenty acres for its days work,
and thus doing the work OF twenty meo.
And thus with the gang pillow, the mod
eru harrow, the seed drill, and the self
binding harvester, the wheat is grown
for thirteen cents busLel, or one-eighth
the cost of the former method of work,
the whole cost of the grain being now
reduced to that of the blowing alone uu
der the methods of fifty years ago.
Farming is not now clOdhOpping. The
workman rides and merely guides his
machine, holding the reins, as the engi-
neer the lever, in his hands; and he
may, if be 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 a boy feeds it with
plants, and big finger takes these and
sets them in the ground, aud Others
press down the soil, while something
else spills a quart of water on the plants,
and hundred plants are thus set while
the story of it is read. Or another takes
the whole potatoes and cuts them, and
drops and covers the cuttings and a
quantity of fertilizer all ready for the
Young plants. Thus the tobacco, the
cabbage aud the potato crops are plant
ed, or may be, at less than oae-tenth of
the former cost and with ten times tue
rspidity.
And the harvested crop is taken IN
hand, so to speak, by machinery, is
separated from the straw, cleaned, drawn
into spouts, stored in the elevators, run
into cars, carried 1000 miles in the time
it formerly occupied in carriage for a
hundred and in constant stream like
river pours itself out over the breadth
of continent. And it is never touched
BY the hand of a man, except that the
engineer who controls the whole work
touches a magic wand, which sets in
motion 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
this wealth of field and farm. The
powerful steamships, by which the ocean
is transformed into a mere way for other
railroads, are but different vehicles for
all the commerce set in motion by the
new agriculture.
But as the soil is brought under cul-
ture and the wealth Of it is drawn up
op, it itself has to be fed, and these
drafts repaid. And the chemist, and
even the miner, and the smelter of iron,
and the men who dig into the bowels Of
the earth for salt aud other minerals are
busy contributing to these needs of the
soil. The use of artificial fertilizers aud
the manufacture of them are by no
means of small account in this category.
Millions of tons of phosphates FROM va
rious sources are gathered, and not
small part of them is procured from the
Stag of the iron furnaces, and farmers
owe that much at least, to the skIllful
inventors of new and improved methods
of making iron and steel, by which the
injurious pbosphoric acid is taken from
the iron and saved for the use of the
farmer in growing increased crops.
And the potash, which is needed to
replace the thousands of tons Of it re-
moved from the land each year in the
form Of wheat aud other food crops, is
now almost wholly supplied by the salt
mines In 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 its share
Of work and material to enable him to
do this. The garden is cultivated by q
. variety Of labor-saving tools, the dairy
Is completely remodcIed by new inveu-
tons of the most surprising kind.