The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1907-07-26
WHAT MODERN MACHINERY HAS
DONE FOR THE FARMER.
BUSY SEASON IN KANSAS
Only a Small Crew Now to Care FOR
the Annual clean.up-Natura Gas
is Burned In Some Cases
In the Engines.

the threshing season IN southern
Kansas and in the wheat fields Of
this section can be seen the busy
crews hauling the shocked wheat 10
the machines and then hauling the
grain away to the elevator or to the
bin. The little cloud of smoke when /
used to mark the location of the 7.
threshing engines over the hill can 4
no longer be relied upon absolutely |
for in many fields here the engines /
are hooked up with gas pipes and |
natural gas is burned instead of coal !
In threshing as in everything else the /
last few years have brought many /.
changes. and the task Of getting the |
grain separated from the garnered |
sheaves has become an easy one com
pared to what it was ten years ago.
When theshing used to be consid-
cred an annual event and would call
forth the combined assistance of all
the men In the neighborhOod II is
now little more than an ordinary
every day affair. and the interest and
enthusiasm that used to anticipate
rural community has in this strictly
commercial epoch given way to cal
culations on the amount of grain per
acre or the price it will bring when
sold to the nearest elevator.
The machinery OF threshng has
been perfected wonderfully in the
past few years and the hands that
we're formerly summoned long in ad-
vance of the great threshing day are
needed no longer. The crews once
consisted of an engineer, water haul
er two separators men, two feeders,
/ two cutters, three weighers and three
| stackers. The forces have been We
accompany the thresher i'm its rounds
| through the wheat belt are the en-
| gineer. water hauler and separator
man. The farmer, instead of spend
| ing day riding over the community
seeking all the help he can get as
he used to do, now calls up his near
est neighbor hires two or three teams
| and men to help haul away the grain
and waits the coming of the thresher
with no more anxiety than he does
the coming OF the rural mail carrier
or some other perfunctory event
The thresher these days is a self
feeding affair and when It has taken
the grain from the straw It separates
the two with all the skill and thor
oughness that can be levisod. The
men with their wagons haul the
shocks to the machine, throw in the
sheaves and the machine does tn"
rest. The band cutters and the feed
ers who used to face the rapidly re-
volving cylinder as they fed 1t with
the loosened straw, are no longer in
the deal at all. The separator sends
the grain TO the scales which dumps
It in thirty pound lots into wagons,
count IL and thus calcu,oto city
the amount threshed
The straw is blown out at the other
end of the machine through long
tube which revolves In a semi-circle
form, building crescent shaped stack
Here three more men have been dis
pensed with. In olden days the straw
fell from a moving ladder device at
the back end of the separator Then
: later the ladder was made to trave
I'm n crescent shaped circuit but three
men had to be used to place thu
straw as It fell from the crane-lik'
bumper. Now, however, there Is
: strong, large fan in the center OF th'
separator from which the wind Blow
the straw through long tube out Il
u the stack. The straw by this tim
Is nothing more than a fiber, for tn
threshing machine Of today cuts /
completely and breaks It up into
= chaf No man could stand in tron
of this blower on a stack Tor tl
straw comes out more IKE uual III"
as original stalks Of wheat Some
the farmers say that the new metho
$ OF stacking loses them some OF thei
! wheat by blowing IL out with IN
= straw, but the threshermen con-
back at this by saying that their mi
chimes of today thresh much cleant
than the old ones did and they thu
offset any loss by stacking by ge
ting so much more grain out of II
straw.
There has been no advance in Il
price per bushel for threshing b
cause the machines can do so mu'
more work In day than they us'
TO. The charge here Is three cen