The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-19

let's ii run into the wagon. There is no
more Of the tedious fanning-mill process
that tired out the boy of the earlier genera
ton.
Nor liz there band cutter at the start
of the machines work. A sclf-feeder at
tachment does all that, and from the min
ut that the bundles, tied in Irvine by self
binders, are pitched at the gaping mouth
of the separator until the farmer drives
to the elevator with his load of clean wheat,
leaving the straw behind, the hand OF man
has not been called into IIse. The ma
chine does ii all.
But the new method has one danger
that was foreign to the earlier days%tire.
When the old horse power was in vogue
nobody ever h. ard of wheat field fire,
but now. with the traction engines and
the carrying of Goals acre SIS the dry stubble'
the matter becomes serious
Somt tim while the crew is eating IN
the cook shanty there comes from the
Fl, Id VIII re the painting engine has been
left standing n cloud of smoke. One day
when Carl Hapner was driving an engine
out in Ellis county there was sudden
alarm OF this kind.
Down by the stacks were his fine sep
arator and engine and he ran bare headed
TO the smoking. burning stack to save
them. Into the cloud he ran and leaped
on the footboard of the engine
"Get ready and couple her. he called
to his foreman, u Swede, who was waiting
in wonder.
The fireman obeyed and pulled OF the
tor taI fro ~
the engine, was now sweeping up the side
OF, tn stacks. but Carl showed the lever,
and the huge black machine turned and
twist, and backed until it was just in
front of the separator.
"All right" called the fireman. and away
went Carl
The smoking machine swayed and rum
bled behind his hurI yiDg automobile OF the
plains-but il came, nevertheless, and he
rode triumphantly out Of the field while
the flames ate up 5000 bushels OF grain that
the farmer had worked year to raise.
Out in Ellis county were raised 2,O000O0
bushels of winter wheat this year. The
first acre of wheat ever produced in the
county was in 1879, when Hill Wilson, now
Of Topeka. put in ten acres. 1t was sod
wheat, but it did we'll and when it was ripe
he wondered how he would be able to cut it..
Not a reaper could be found within sixty
miles. Near him was a colony OF Russians
and he received call from their leader.
Il will cut your wheat" said he. "for 81
an acre
II was all the wheat was worth, but Mr.,
Wilson had to agree. The Russian brought
all the women of the colony TO the farm
and with hand sickles they cut the grain
while in their arms and aprons they carried
it to the little grarary.
To-day Ellis county Uses 1000 extra labor
ers to cut the wheat its soil grows. With
such development in what was once an
arid country is it any wonder that the
farmers prosper?
It costs So TO plant harvest and market
an acre of grain. This year Ellis county
will sell 81 200, 900 worth of grain that cost
only $500 900 to raise. This means s4OO,0 900
profit for 5000 people, or $50 for every
man, woman and child in the county.
That is the way a wheat crop counts out
West.
The threshers who are making themselves
we'll 10 do ont of the present wheat crop
have invested only about 81 800 on an aver
age. If they can thresh 1000 bushels Of
wheat day for fifty days they will pay
for their machine and outfit. Next year
they will make an equal amount for the
Kansas wheat crop shows no indication of
diminishing. This is the remarkable record
of the past decade