Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1939-11-16
Facts. and
Fanciies
Of BRISTOlTOWN
MORGAN COUNTY, OHIO
As Seen. Recollected and Collected
BY G.. B. RAY
CHAPTER XII
Johnny AppleSeed


seed Johnny or Johnny Apple
seed" No history of Bristol town.
ship-or perhaps any other town
plete without mention of this man.
who not only sowed seeds of good
ness, but planted appleseeds, as he
went about over the country preach
ing the teachings Of the Christ. 1t
was said that he was often barefoot
ed, but never without an ample sup
ply of appleseeds. AS he tramped
from place to place, he planted apple
seeds. In our boyhood We remem-
ber of having old folks point out
trees which they said had grown
from seed planted by this man. 1t
has always been a wonder to us how
we got the different varieties. for as
at this time this is accomplished by
grating. At any rate the Rev
Johnny is remembered more by his
apple seed planting by people Of this
age. than by his preaching. MAY
be he is reaping the benefits Of his
sowing in the heavenly land.
Threshing
ONLY recently we saw a threshlng
crew hauling out of the shocks to
the threshing machine. AS we
watched the operation we thought
of the changes that have taken place
in the harvesting and threshing OF
grain during the 125 years Of the
township history The pioneers cut
the grain with sickles and cradles.
and then beat the grain out of the
straw with fails, then run 1t
n Ia 11nW
chaff out. Then came the grubbers.
This was a machine driven by morse
power. The sheaves We're run
thruogh cylinders filled with spikes
which loosened the grain from the
chaff, after which it was run
through the windmill, as in the for
mer case. Then came the separator
this was a machine which was
combination of the grubber ana
windmill The grain came out OF
the machine through a spout into
half bushel measures. At first the
man who measured kept count ct
fhe number of bushels threshed.
Later a device was invented which
was attached to the side of the mea~
suring box with a lever protTudln@.
When the half bushel was pulled
past it. it pushed the lever forward
and caused a little machine to reg
lister. OF course some men filled
the measures fuller than others.
With this type of machine it took
much larger crew to operate, than
the outfits Of the present day, be-
sides it took eight and ten horses TO
furnish the power We watched
Lincoln Dingey, local thresherman,
with his outfit which was much
smaller than the old time separator
that was run by horse and steam
power. Lines outfit is run by a
tractor. In this case it is self
feeder, which eliminates the band
cutters and the feeders. Then they
have the wind stacker which is op-
Grated by one man or a boy. which
does away with three or four men
on the straw stack The wheat IS
weighed in the machine and dump
ed into sacks.
Is Your Name Written There?
In our boyhood days, about all
birth record amounted to was to de-
termine whether a boy was 81, or
girl IS. Now that we have old age
pensions and that manufacturing
concerns require birth certificates,
and in case of government officials
they are often, if not always, requir-
ed 10 furnish proof that they were
born American citizens. We do not