The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1918-08-08
When Grand Dad Threshed.

II . -a + Il.
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 a
liffy, and has the grain flowing from
the. spout Of the automatic weigher
unhitching the mules from the
horsepower. lie gains the, power Of
4 forty horses with a shovel and a few
Jumps of coal. The self feeoer and
the blow straw stacker relieves him
of the dirtiest and most laborious
Jobs we older 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 in
stead OF three
But there was a time when "run-
ming Win th tHa daco mah mes or or sge
cure or snap. Then at least four
horses We're to be cared for. one
team pulled the separator, the 9TH
er the horse. power and usually a
! third drew the wagon loaded with
,,.tumbling rods" stakes and tools:
the stackyards then for stacking was
not a lost art as yet. Bright and
early before the sun rose you pulled
in and set" the separator properly
between four large stacks, "staked
down the big horse power by main
strength and sledge hammers, slim
ned into place the six long sweeps
through which twelve horses were to
transmit their strength, affixed the
'equalizers,' creased the bull wheel
ana lied up, saw the right sieyess
in place and spout and grain box
ready, tried the cylinder teeth and
ed those. that were bent land tick
ed" as the cylinder spun round, I'M
folded the stacker, hung the feed
er's 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
tire shed water like ducks back.
Every bundle had the pitch" The
man who made that stack kept 1.-The
%ade o nj the aRd onsde eosry
Sometimes you wondered how they
kept their places, so steeply they
slanted downward Between loads
he raked the butts with an old-fash-
toned wooden rake until it shed
water like Scotch ts aot hatfh So
began. Two men pitched from the
stack to the feeder. One man meas
ured 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
wagons instead of carrying in sacks
for the measure not only cared for
the grain, but tailed with a lead
pencil on tally board. Two men
made the straw stack and to make
a good stack was a matter of pride
as of duty in those days. The band
cutter was usually youth armed
1,,;+1 c;a IL llr 1,-itI, whit
he severed the straw bands that con
fined the grain, for this was before
the wire binder and it's successors,
the Irvine binder. TENDING sepa-
tor" was no snap either then. In
sstence was on clean grain and all
the grain. Usually the farmer was
in evidence about the sleeves and at
IN cant trouble for the thresher man
The driver was a select man who
knew how to maintain an even pow
er with the. last worry to the teams
and the feeder was presumed to meet
the power precisely with the proper
spread wide with a dextrous flirt and
fed evenly into the cylinder. There
was no haphazard fashion of fling
ing bundles on the table, heads or
butts. Each bundle had to go on
p,;te ito toward ard the cylinder indie 9th,
and flung the bundle off the table
and the feeder monarch of his time,
backed the cutter, even to blows.
But nowadays no band cutter fuss
es over the wav the bundles come on
and the feeder has departed, pushed
from his board by inventive genius.
We haven't thought much of the
niceties of .threshine, such and bun
dies properly pitched to the machine
and The like. but we are thinking
about them this year, when bushel
of grain, is equivalent to a AZ cent?
meter shell placed where it will do
the most good to democracy and
cause the most embarrassment to
autocracy. Perhaps it would help
some if grandfather overlooked the
threshing this year reviving that old
custom of getting all the grain and
saving all that he got.-Iowa Times
l.epublican.