Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1916-07-08
THE ROMANCE OF HARVESTING

more interesting than the tales OF
the Arabian Nights, and more thrill
ing than the Adventures sof Simbad,
The sailor -
For $4,000 years men saved the
wheat crops with the old hand sickle.
Every busheI of wheat required three
hours of a mans life to produce it.
The cradle came and took the sickie's
place lasting about seventy five
years to tighten the burdens of the
grain growers. In the year Ioe9-the
famous year in the worlds history.
Cyrus Il Mccormick was born-the
year Lincoln and Darwin we're born
two pther liberators of the race He
gavefto the world the self binding
harvester. 1t reduced the time to
produce bushel of wheat to ten
minutes. Men thought for years the
last thought had been given. 1t had
revoiutioniZed small grain farming,
and made the United States the gran
ary of the world. 1t may be hard for
US TO believe it, but the main object
of man for the last 10000 years, had
been Co get bread. Famine was al
ways stalking near the people in
those days
Only kings and their retinues had
enough bread to eat. 1t is no exag-
geration TO say that the world was
hungry for countless centuries. Black
bread was food for the common man
Even the nations that gave to the
world Galileo, Laplace and Newton
were always seeing the ghosts of hun
ger until Mccormick came We had
thought that this man had userhed in
the Millennium of Prosperity He
had.f He will live among the immor-
tails of history.
But the last word was not said nor
the last basic notion had not been
thought by Mccormick, as most men
had supposed. About eight years
ago a Kansas boy dreamed that he
could construct a machine that would
thresh the grain while standing, ,leav-
ing the straw on the ground, elimin-
ating the header barge, the threshing
machine crew and all the burdens
that need must fall upon the farmers
wife and daughters. On last Wed
nesday we witnessed the dream of
eigirc> years ago in action We saw
the standing grain thresher at work
We saw the call of the farmers an
swered. We saw the work of
Mccormick out distanced, and what
had revolutionfzed harvesting of the
last half of the nineteenth century
and perfected in the first of the
twentieth century taking its place
along the side of the sickle, cradle,
Marsh Harvester, and Osborne wire
binder-I mean the Mccormick twine
binders and headers. While we will
not forget the benefactors of the pas
but let US not cling to the traditions
of ancient days, but take hold of this
new thought" that originated in
Kansas, press the opportunity and
gladly recognize the new inventor,
Curtis @. Baldwin of Nickerson.
We went to the Experimental Sta
the world, to watch this machine
make its showing. 1t was started in
field of tough, half ripe rye, much
of it still in the dough. Four mules
were hitched to the machine, the
gasoline engine was started, the
wheels obeyeot the applied power, the
cylinder speeding up to about 800 rev.
olutions and the thresher was pushed
into the grain passing across one end
of the field and at least three hun
dred men watched it work After
reaching the south side of the plot
the machine stopped, men gathered
around, making comments as to the
results, but one and all agreed it
would work. The machine may not
be perfect in its construction, but it
does perfect work
We are free to say it is the most
far reaching, revolutionary piece of
machinery that has been given to the
agricultural world in the last eighty
years Perhaps it will add more to
the happiness of man, conserve the
soil better and make it possible for
more people through the world TO
eat white bread than any invention
that has been given to man during
the long roll of time.-A- S. Hale