Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-09-18
ONLY THE MILKING
All Else on the Farm is Done in Some New
Way.
The InAnite Variety and Capabflity
Of Modcrn Machinery for Field
and Farm House work.
From the Chicago -.ord.

From the Chicago Rcord.
I'VE who live n the cities never know
about the country. We imagine that we
are the only ones who get the advantages
of modern inventions, and that the farmer
plays around in the mud the same as he
did when we were boys
why. 1 learned more during those two
days on the farm than ever expected to
know about farming. Now. you helped to
thrash when you were a boy. did,
know. can't date back to the time when
the men used to cradle the grain and then
beat 1t out with fails. but happened along
In the time of the reaping machines. The
seif-btnder hadn't come in yet. We used
to thrash the grain with one of those
horsepower separators that you could hear
two miles away when It got to grinding
You know the kind, I suppose-five or six
teams OF horses going around on the power
and man up on the big cog wheel plat
form In the center cracking whip over
them. That kind of a machine was a
horse-killer and no mistake. 1t took about
i've minutes of digging to get started and
It was hard pulling all the time. Then IL
the feeder happened to let a wet sheaf gel
in crosswise the cylinder would stick and
every horse would go up in the air. You
probably remember that when the traction
engine came in every one said that 1t was
the final Improvement. 1t knocked out so
much grain that the separator had to be
fed from both sides--twc hand cutters
two men to put the grain into the wagons
and three or four men to stack the straw
Did you ever work at the tail end of the
machine, as they used to call it? Had to
wear goggles, you know. Chaf flying SO
thick that IT got in your ears. nose and
mouth, down your back, sticking to you
and tickling wherever you were wet with
perspiration. which was everywhere; straw
piling up around you and threatening to
bury you unless you worked your way out;
sun about S and no shade! And yet the
agricultural papers used to wonder why
boys left the iarm!
well, when I was at Ezra's went over
with him to look at an improved thrasher.
1 wouldn't have believed it. They don't
need any one at the tail end Of the ma
chine any more. Instead OF the old-fash-
Toned straw carrier, with its belts and Stats.
the improved separator is provided with a
blower. shaped just like a big smoke
stack, and all the straw and chaff is forced
through this by powerful fans. This blow
err carries all the dust and chaff away
from the machine. In the old days you
couldn't see the machine for a cloud of
Dust surrounding it. But, as 1 started to
tell you there are no men on the straw
stack any more. That big blower swings
around and distributes the straw, making
a good semi-circular stack. There are no
men at the other end of the machine,
either. The Irvine bands are cut by pat
ent cutter. and the sheaves are carried
to the cylinder by an automatic feeder.
All the men have to do is to pitch the
sheaves up on the platform and the ma
chine does the rest. After the oats are
thrashed out they carried to the top
of the machine, weighed and measured and
dumped into the wagon. All that the man
at the wagon has to do is to keep the grain
scooped away.
1.-The way that grain comes out is eau
ucn. 1t takes q very few minutes to fill
a wagon. AS a matter of fact. about the
only labor in thrashing nowadays is the
hauling to and front the machine You can
probably remember the time. Miller, when
LOCO bushels was considered a big days
thrashing: but / understand that nova
days they can knock out $500 to 1000 bush
els. If they could only invent some device
to keep grain at good price they'd be all
right, wouldn't they?'
ITS remarkable" said Miller. 81 didn't
know that the machinery had been i'm
proved to that extent"
IFS the same with most kinds of farm
work." said Goodwin. Ezra was showing
me his haystacker. 1t seems that there
isn't much pitching any more. And you
know how they plant corn now, don't you?
1 don't. but 1 understand you don't have
to pull lever to drop the corn. They've
got everything now except a corn husker.
but Ezra says that man wants to sell
him ore for this fall so il 1 go back next
year Ezra will probably be sitting in the
house reading a paper, while the machine
is out husking his corn. Yes, everything's
different. EZra's wife did her cooking on
a gasoline stove. The wind pump draws
the water. and believe it works the churn
too. They milk the cows in the old-fash-
toned way, but that was about the only
thing I rHpoqniZe1 "