The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1897-11-06
City Man in the Country.

We who live in 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, | learned more during those two
DAYS on the farm than ever expected to
know about farming Now, you helped
to thresh when you were boy, did, /
know. can t date back to the time when
the men used to cradle the grain and then
beat it out with fails, but | happened
along in the time of the reaping machines.
The self binder hadn' come in yet. We
used to thresh the grain with one Of those
horsepower separators that you could hear
2 miles away when it got to grinding.
Yeu know the kind, | suppose or six
teams of horses gniHg around ON the power
and man up on the big wheel platform
in the centre cracking a whip over them.
That kind of a machine was horse-killer
and no mistake. 1t took about five min
utes to get it started and it was pulling all
the time Then if the feeder happended
to let wet sheaf get 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
it was the final improvement ltknocked
out so much grain that the separator had
TO be fed from both sides-two band
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. Chaff
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 90 and no shade And
yet the agricultural papers used to wonder
why boys left the farm
Well, when | was at Ezra went over
with him to look at an improved thresher
wouldn't have believed it. They don't
need anyone at the tail end of the machine
any more. Instead of the old fashioned
strawcarrier, with its belts and Stats, the
improved separator is provided with
blower, shaped just like big smoke
stack, and all the straw and chaff is forced
through this by powerful fans. This
blower carries all the dHst and chaff away
from the machine In the old days you
couldn't see the machine for cloud Of
dust surrounding it. But as | started in
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 patent cutter, and the sheayes
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
machine does the rest. After the oats are
threshed out they are 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.
The way the grain comes out is eau
ton. 1t takes very few minutes to fill
a wagon, As matter of fact, abent the
only labor in threshing nowadays is the
hauling to and from the machine
You can probably remember the time,
Miller, when 900 bushels was considered
big days threshing; but | understand
that nowadays they can knock out $500
to 4, 900 bushels. If they could only in
vent some device to keep grain at good
price they d be all right, wouldn't they ~
sits remarkable, said Miller II
didn't know that the machinery had been
improved to that extent
1T S the same with most kinds of farm
work, said Goodwin. Ezra was show
ing his haystacker. 1t seems that there
ISM much pitching any more. And you
know how they plant corn now don you ?
| don't, but | understand you don have
to pull lever to drop the corn. They We
got everything now except a corn husker,
but Ezra says that man wants to sell him
one for this fall, so if 90 back next year
Ezra will probably be sitting in the house
reading paper, while the machine is out
husking his corn. Yes, everything diff
ferent Ezra wife did her cooking on
gasoline stove. The wind pump draws the
water, and l believe it works the churn,
too They MIXED the cows in the old
fashioned way, but that was about the only
thing | recognized. .