Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1900-06-25
FARMING BY MACHINERY
INVENTION FAST MAKING HUMAN
LABOR OLD FASHIONED.


r vator of the land is rapidly
i becoming thing of the past.
The term "horny- handed till
er of the soil," within a few years will
be relegated in the United States, to
the vernacular of the poet. Automatic
labor-saving machinery is supplanting
the necessity for bodily labor in all
agricultural processes from the turn
ing of the sod to the harvesting of the
crop. What little manual labor is re-
quired is devoted to supervision of
the working parts of the various ma
chimes employed.
In 1900 not single cast iron plough
was in use. The plow was home
made-of wood covered with sheet
iron. The man with the hoe was the
laborious cultivator. There were no
mowers, reapers or self-binders driven
by horse power. Grain was scattered
by hand and harvested with the sickle
or the scythe. 1t was threshed on
the barn floor and ground into -four
full of impurities, in rude grist mills,
driven by great over-shot water wheels.
In 1900 the plowman uses a sulky
plow upon which he has comfort
able seat from which to guide pair
of horses. The machine does the rest.
The reversible sulky plow is equally
adapted to stony, rough, side-hill
work or level ground. In the former
case it turns the sod with the slope,
in the latter it leaves the land without
tracks or dead burrows. For this
work right and left hand steel plow
is mounted upon steel beam, one be-
ing at right angles with the other,
and easily revolved by unlocking a
hand lever at the rear of the driver,
the weight of the upper plow caus-
ing the lower to rise. Each plow
has an easy adjustment to make it cut
a wide or narrow furrow, and is raised
out of the ground by power lift and
set in again by foot lever, so that
the operator has both hands with which
to manage his team. An adjustable
seat enables the driver to sit always
in level position and on the upper
most side in plowing side-hill land. In
few years horse labor will be dis
pensed with for moving this machine
and some auto-power substituted.
USING ELECTRIC MOTORS.
1t may be if electricity is employed
that the farmer will be able to sit
smoking his pipe on his porch with a
switchboard bsfore him and control
many plows. With electric motors
applied to all agricultural implements
single man may be able to plow,
harrow, fertilize, SOW and harvest his
crops with no expenditure whatever
of bodily labor or one cent of cost for
the hire of human hands. In earlier
days the harrow was crude home
made square or triangular machine,
on which wooden, and later, iron pegs
were inserted. In some cases log
drawn to and fro was employed to
level the furrows. In these times
farmers use sulky-harrows of every
imaginable form and device according
to the local condition. There is
pulverizing harrow, clod crusher and
leveller combined in one machine.
This crushes, cuts, lifts, turns,
smooths and levels the soil all in one
operation. 1t also prepares perfect
seed bed and covers the seed in the
best manner. The operator from his
seat ON the machine effects all of the
processes by turning lever. Then
there is ball-bearing disk narrower
with dirt-proof oil chambers. The
machine does everything but supply
the driver, automatically, with glass
of water.
There is no more laborious kind of
farm work than the spreading of ma
nure; so much so that in farming on
a large scale it is difficult to procure
labor for the purpose. This can now
be dispensed with. A machine called
the manure spreader does all this
work. 1t is drawn by horses and op-
Grated by one man. 1t breaks up and
makes fine all kinds of manure and
spreads it evenly upon the land in
any desired quantity. 1t will spread
very coarse manure, cornstalks or
wood ashes, or guano-in fact, any
manure or fertilizer, fine or coarse.
Provided with drill attachment it
distributes compost direct in the drill
before the seed is sown, 1t does
everything in the manuring way ex-
cept to hurl epithets at the mules,
MACHINE FOR PLANTING EVERY CROP.
When it comes to the planting OF
crops there is a machine for every
process from the sowing OF cereals,
seeds and tubers, to the setting out OF
plants. For grain or grass there is
driving broadcast seeder, which is at
tached to an ordinary wagon. 1t also
distributes all kinds of dry CONNER
cial fertilizers. 1t allows of the SOW
ing of seed of any size. Then there
is grain drill, driven by horse power,
in which the quantity to be sown is
easily regulated by lever. 1t is also
provided with land measure OF clock
which is adjusted before beginning
the days work. 1t is fitted with hoes
which can be instantly changed by
lever, even while the machine is in
motion, to run either straight CT zig
gag. For grass seeding the hoes can
be adjusted to distribute the seed in