Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1905-01-04
1cenoclasm on the Farm.

One by one the old farm ideals
are yielding before the march of
invention. Long ago it revolution
lied the wheat field, has rendered
impossible an idyllic glimpse of
Maud Muller at the haymow and
made prosaic the old associations of
the orchard and meadow. Machinery
has no sentiment. 1t is as cold.
blooded as miser and as calculat.i
ing as a note-shaver. It reducesi
axe ts d aasss5ssss sFssRggasts
of arithmetic. Much is gained in
one way, but much also is lost in
another. Speed. economy, time
saving, are brought about at tho
expense of the leisure in which was
embodied much of the romance of
the farm. Farm work formerly
embodied much Of the social features.
Harvest in the olden times were
matters of many days, brought to-
gether all the neighbors and were
enlivened by elaborate dinners, con-
VITALITY in various forms and jovial
gatherings in the evening for in
diligence in song and dance. All
this has disappeared before the
click-a-ti-click Of the noisy thresher
and tho methodical movements Of
the stately stackers. Haying parties
log rollings, races behind the cradles
Jolly gatherings of the boys and
girls to pare apples are all things
Of the past.
The latest theater to be invaded
was the corn field. 1t was found
difficult to invent machines in this
department Of agriculture and many
of the old features still linger in the
harvesting of the universal corn.
But at last it has been conquered
and scarcely anything remains to be
done by hand. The supremacy of
the "shucking- pin" has been over
thrown and the corn-knife will soon
take its place on the scrap pile.
The corn harvester that cuts and
binds the stalks and drops the
bundles in windrows made its ap-
pearance some time ago. This was
followed by the shocker that cuts
and mechanically shocks and the
shredder to supplant other old line
methods. Now looms up on the hori-
zon great double-jointed combina-
ton machine under the name of the
corn picker" This monster is
drawn by two horses, goes down a
cornlield row and carefully picks off
and shucks the ears. In ten or
twelve hours a day it is said to be
good for from six to nine hundred
bushels. 1t delivers the corn into
farm wagon that keeps pace with
the machine and whose bed is al
ways under the elevator. The corn
stalks are left standing in the field
with few Of the leaves stripped off
while the husks are automatically
dumped. All that is needed for the
operation are team of horses and
driver with the necessary wagons to
keep up with the machine. Thus
corn, the greatest and most expen-
sive of all crops to handle, though
yielding reluctantly has at last been
conquered by mechanical genius and
the iconoclastic revolution would
seem to be complete.
What now is to become Of the
husking bees that from time i'm
memorial have been ornamental
features of the harvest of new corn?
What Of the man or boy with the
"shucking-pin" leisurely taking of
the husks in the field at SO much per
day? What of the cutting up corn
with the old-fashioned corn-knife,
the shocking at equal distance and
the subsequent operations that fol.
lowed as time allowed all during the
late fall and winter. In back dis.
tricts, Of course this will go on vel
for many years, but in the central
states, in the great corn belt, in the
localities where scientific farming
prevails. we have seen the last Of
everything poetical connected with