The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1926-10-28

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of a Problem That Has Been a Seri-
Gus One With Garrett County Far
mers in the Saving of their Buck
wheat Crops The Past Two Years.
When the weather is bad in the fall
of the year as it has been for the past
two seasons, the saving of the buck
wheat crop is quite serious problem.
To secure the best results the grain
should be Uhreshed within a week
after it is cut, but since all the grain
in the county is cut about the same
time, it is obviously impossible to
thresh it all in the time mentioned
if all depend upon the travelling
threshing machine to do the work. In
bad seasons farmers are often con-
fronted with the dilemma of threshing
their buckwheat while it is wet or of
leaving it in the field hoping that a
machine may come along later when
the grain is dry. In either case some
loss is certain and often it is total.
As a solution to this problem | am
suggesting that in each small section
of the county the farmers unite and
obtain a small machine that can be
driven by at least six horsepowed
engine. A machine that merely
threshes and shakes out the straw is
preferred over one of the separator
type for several reasons: the latter
costs too much, it takes too many men
to run it and they rarely do first class
work on buckwheat in that they fire.
quently hull some of the grain and
leave quite bit of short straw. OF
course with the first type of "chaff-
piler" the grain will have to be clean
ed up on tanning mill and that is
hard work, but that can be done on
rainy days when nothing else can be
done.
A number of years ago, my broth
ers, living in the Mason section, lost
several crops of buckwheat by reason
of wet weather. We then secured a
small machine, which we ran with a
six h. p. gasoline engine and since
then they and their immediate neigh
bors have been able to save their
buckwheat in the proper time and in
the proper condition.
When we tried to get some of these
ancient type of machines we discov-
cred that they were no longer made.
However, by good luck we secured
from a junk heap the casting of a
thresh box and a cylinder, which we
had to rebuild, of Prick separator of
the vintage of the eighties. From an
other source we bought shaft to OPP
crate the shaker and bearings there
for and from another source a 20-inch
pulley. A blacksmith forged a 4-inch
crank on the shaft The rest of the
work we did ourselves in about two
weeks, one man working most of the
time and two others at odd moments.
The frame of the machine and the
shaker were made from material on
the farm and we did the iron work
ourselves. The bottom of the shaker
was made from a sheet of galvanized
iron in which the proper holes were
punched. For driving the shaker we
anchored a flexible lath of hickory
to the bottom and connected it to the
crank on the shaker shaft by a head
of seasoned hickory.
The hole in this head was first bored
and then burned out to size by means
of hot bolt. This produced smooth,
hard bearing which has shown no in
dication of wear after ten years SER
vice. For pulley on the cylinder
shaft to drive the shaker we keyed
on built-up block of maple and then
turned it down to 4-inch size. The
cylinder speed is little ''dizzy" for
turning, but it can be done. When
completed the machine was at once
put in service and has been run each
year since then with practically no re-
pairs.
Buckwheat is one of our most valu-
able crops, but every good cook
knows that good cakes cannot be made
from grain that has not been properly
cared for. AS large part of the
crop is shipped to distant points, the
reputation of the buckwheat of the
county is apt to suffer if a poor quail
ity is marketed. In order to preserve
the reputation of our buckwheat l am
offering this solution. Of course it has
Objectionable features, but expert
ence has shown that it produces re-
suits that are worth considering.