Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1914-08-11
A LOST ART.

A Bohemian farmer out east of town
has bunch of stacks standing in his
srackyard which look like old times.
Tall and true and tapering they stand
those Companies of prosperity. They
will shed water like a ducks back.
Stacking is becoming lost art on
the Iowa farms and pity It's It's true.
For stacked grain is always better II
the stacking is well done, the straw is
cleaner and brighter and the grain runs
heavier TO the measure.
Nobody ever dreamed Of threshing
from the field years ago when we were
boys picking up little money helping
in harvest and stacking. Everybody
stacked Nearly every farm had some
one who knew how 20 stack. /, was
an art and some excelled at it as some
excel in all arts Those there were
whose stacks took water" and grew"
But il was more or less Of disgrace
when stacks showed green atop from
the roadside and when the threshernlen
the feed tables at threshtng time
a good dry stack was dependent up
on the pitch" Of The bundles that COM
posed il. You started in the center OF
a circle standing bundles almost
straight up and down. tSone made
ricks. long. rectangular piles Of bundles
but this article deals with stacks and
stackers. No real stacker ever ouilt
a rick) Around those center bundles
butts out were laid rows in widening
circles until the stack bottom was COM
pleted. Then with the center high anc
heads all inside the bands the stack
grey widening as II went UP until the
pitcher from the wagon foreseeing
hard pitching 20 the top suggested /,
was time 10 begin drawing in Inen
the circles narrowed as the stacker
wen, round and round upon all fours
"kneeingr every bundle Gradually the
stack drew TO steeple point and the
pitcher gruuted as he flung up the
bundles. And when If had come to
the apex the stacker stood precarioue
" a. the summit, broke" bundle four
ways. capped his finished stack and
/ pinned the last bundle there with a
long. sharp stake against wind.
That stack never took 2 drop OF wa
ter. 1t was raked down It's sides Ike
a ,hatch. 1t settled true and stood
perpendicular affording no cuppy places
to catch rain. When the threshing ma
chine was backed in between four OF
these stacks and the driver mounted
i the horse power the steady grind oil
gears never ceased unless to wait for
belated wagon which Was hauling
away" Ani the hauler was disgraceo
who failed 20 De ready to run his
/ wagon up TO the machine where the
dusty and sweaty "measurer" was
boosting bushel baskets Of oats oTe'
the side of a top box" and wonder
ing # noon would ever come.
That was straw that the cattle would
eat. The art Of stacking extended tc
the s,rawpiie /. was kept high IL
the middle and topped artisticaiiy il
rick fashion. When you cut down witt
a hay knife in the winter that oTigh
cat straw had no smell or stain oi
mold. The horses liked it. Ii va!
bedding Fl. for an equine prince. Tn
neighbors used to come over and FL
their straw ticks with it
Blu. it is becoming lost art. tn
native American has lost the how
il. He doesn't care much for The stray
excep. as fertilizer. He threshes from
the field and gets it over. But II va
an art just the same.