The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-07-11
IN AHARVEST MOOD.
Some Points of Interest for the Far
mers- How the Machine Has
Changed Things.

ter of century ago. Some folks argue
that the What in those days was always
in the barnby the Fourth of July, but
there are others who say that these people
either fortt or never knew anything
about the wheat harvest. This year the
wheat shelves will be very far from get
ting in under cover by the 4th, for the
grass harvest will consume week or two
yet ere it Il completed
Farmers say that double the quantity
of wheat, corn and hay is produced now
a-days on the same acreage to what was
garnered twenty years ago. This change
comes of more lavish use of fertilizers
and throuh better tillage by the aid of
improved farm machinery In the work
of gathering these crops the labor and
fuss is not Dne third what it was in those
days, and With each succeeding year the
work is being simplified. Hired help is
the trouble now. 1t is difficult to get, and
once secured II is hard to hold. The farm
seems to have few attractions to men and
boys in comparison to what 1t had in
years ago, and "a happy thought it is
which comes to the farm owner as he re-
allies that the inventive genius of man
has met this condition of affairs by way
of supplying farm machinery that almost
talks.
The hay tedder is one Of the liveliest of
modern inventions. 1t has motion in its
every fibre, so to speak and there isn't a
lazy bone in its makeup 1t is pro-
digious labor saver and time annihilator
as well. 1t can kick more hay about in
an hour than a small army of men and
boys used to agitate in half day, and 1t
doesn't require any 10 o'clock lunch
either The man who tossed that machine
out of his brain did the farmer service
which is only equalled by the work done
by the mower, reaper and binder
But let's go back to grass-to hay
again.
The hay loader is not yet perfect ma
chine. That is, 1t doesn' cover the deck
as do the reapers and tedderg and rakes of
modern times. On level ground it is all
right, but on hillsides-ah, here 1t is lame
very But this will come all right in
time. Tireless, inventive man knows
that 1t isn't yet up to G and he is working
out the problem which will put it there
after little while.
The hay fork in the barn was a great
and grand innovation when it put in its
appearance years ago. 1t was a sort of
starter; a pioneer to the other great
achievements which came along soon
after. 1t lifted tons of the very hardest
kind of labor off the shoulders of weary
men-for of all the work of the harvest
season that of pitching off" hay and
placing it properly in the NOV was the
most taxing on strenth and endurance.
This new fork hasn't been improved a
great deal. The original invention car
ried pretty nearly all the desired features
leaving 1t difficult task for the inventor
to add improvements
And by all these labor and time savers,
much Of the poetry and beauty of harvest
time has been swept away. The primi-
tive methods employed in gathering the
crops were pretty in many of their feat
ures, and their associations with our
fathers made them sort Of sacred. But
the new ways permitted of no further
observance of sentiment, and the old gave
way to the new just as one generation
takes the place of another in the process
sion of life as applied to the human fam
lily.
There are few now remaining who saw
the reapers with their flashing sickles go
forth to gather the golden grain by that
simple, slow but graceful process The
sickle gave way to the cradle, just as the
Crdlllc ndS W Ull6
hurting machine with cord and dexterous
binder. The reapers moved with a grace
that was the poetry of motion, and merry
were the men who were regarded as ex-
perts in the use of the little curved blade
with its saw-teeth edge. The Graders
made pretty platoon as they, with
measured stroke, slowly with undulating
motion moved across the billowy seas Of
ripened grain, and their work in compar-
ison with that of the reapers was some
thing at first which struck awe to the de-
lighted beholder.
Now the sickle, the scythe and the
cradle are but relics of the past. They are
yet made to a small extent but their field
of labor is confined to the fence corners
and to rough places where the ravenous
machine cannot safely be operated.
They've had their day. They filled their
sphere and passed to one side at the behest
of invention and progress, and who will
dare say that perfection has been reached
in our marvellous farm machines of to-
day? Isn't 1t safe to predict that they,
too, will be supplemented by still greater
achievements through the active brain of
inventive man, and they, too, slink away
into the lumber shed as relics, no longer
able TO keep pace with the progress OF
the timesp