Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1918-07-16
WHEN GRAND DAD 1HRAsHED.

| WuCN OVNNU INV SVHhSUeU'
| Consider the modern threshing man
and his ways His is happy state
compared to that of the ancient
thresherman. Your modern pulls in with
traction engine, sets in jffy and has
the grain flowing from the spout of the
automatic weigher while the old-timer
would have been unhitching the mules
from the horse power. He gains the
power of forty horses with a shovel and
a few humps of COAL The self feeder
and the blow strawstacker relieves him
of the drtiest and most laborious jobs
We olden thresherman had and when
| he is done he backs up the big tractor
| to the separator and goes on his way
at eight miles an hour instead of three.
But there was q time when running
| a threshing machine" or going with
| the machine" was no sinecure or snap
| Then at least four horses were to DE
cared for. One team pulled the
separator the other the horse power
and usually a third drew the wagon
| loaded with 'tumbling rods" stakes
and tools. Most of the threshing was
done in the stackyards then for stack
| ing was not lost art as yet. Bright
and early before the sun rose you
pulled in and set" the separator pro-
perly between four tall stacks, stakeo
down the big horsepower by main
strength and sledgehammers, slipped
| into place the six long sweeps thru
which twelve horses were to transmit
their strength, affixed the "equalizers'
| creased the bull wheel and Aoiled up,
saw the right sleeves in place and the
| spout and grain box ready, tried the
cylinder teeth and frightened loose ones
and Strengthened those that were bent
| land licked" as the cylinder spun round
| unfolded the stacker, hung the feeders
foot board and feed tables-and went
| to breakfast along about sun up.
Dew or a slight shower didn't stop
threshing then. Those stacks made by
| experts in that kind of architecture
shed water like a ducks back Every
bundle had the pitch The man who
made that stack kept the middle
high" and "kneed" every bundle of the
two outside rows Sometimes you
wondered how they kept their places
so steepy they slanted downward. Be-
tween loads he raked the butts with
an old fashioned wooden rake until
it shed water like a Scotch thatch. SO
when breakfast was done threshing
began Two men pitched from the
stack to the feeder. One man measured
the grain as it fell into the half bushel
measure and filled the sacks. BY the
way measuring up was some job
with wooden half bushel before we
learned to haul away in wagons in
stead Of carrying in sacks for the
measurer not only cared for the grain
but tailed with a pencil on tally
board. Two men made the straw stack
and to make good stack was matter
Of pride as Of duty in thise days. The
band cutter was usually youth armed
with a sickle edged knife with which
he severed tho straw bands that con-
fined the grain for this was before the
wire binder and its SUCCESSOR the Irvine
| n
snap either then. Insistence was on
clean grain and all the grain. Usually
the farmer was in evidence about the
sleeves and at the stacker and oats in
the straw meant trouble for the
thresher man. The driver was a select
man who knew how to maintain an
even power with the least worry to
the teams and the feeder was pre-
sumed to meet the power precisely with
the proper volume of grain. Each
bundle was spread wide with a
dextrous firt and fed evenly into the
fashion OF hinsing bundles on the table
heads or butts. Each bundle had to GO
on pointed toward the cylinder. Other
wise the band cutter rose in rage and
flung the bundle off the table and the
feeder, monarch Of his time, backed the
band cutter even to blows.
But nowadays no band cutter fuses
over the way the bundles come on and
the feeder has departed pushed from
his board by inventive genius. We
haven't thought much of the niceties o,
threshing such as bundles properly
pitched to the machine and the like
but we are thinking about them thi.
year when a b,lshel of grain is equivai.
ent to a 42-centimeter shell placed
where it will do the most good tt
democracy and cause the most en-
barassment to autocracy Perhaps II
4 would help some if grandfather over
Ilootod the 4Lroahsy, tb;c ,,oo rox,f n, o