Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 188, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1911 — THE MACHINE ON IKE EARN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MACHINE ON IKE EARN

Centuries ago men plowed with * crooked stick and reaped with a sickle They are doing the same thing in tb< same way today in some parte ot th< world, but not in America. The development of farm machinery has been very slow. The modert reaper is only about 50 years old. Tlu automatic binder came into use as lat. as 1877. Gasoline engines on the faru were practically unknown ten yean ago and the disc harrow, the inosf useful of farm implements, has beet used only since 1854. The modern grainheader Is a new machine. Our old friend Pliny de

scribes a header which was used ir his time. It was “a large, hollow frame armed with teeth for driving through standing grain so that the heads were torn off and fell into the frame.” That is a pretty good de scription of the modern header. In Pliny’s time a slave and an ox could harvest as much as an acre a day ii they worked hard. The first reaper was propelled by horses or oxen and it was death tc animals. It took four horses or two yoke of oxen to drag the heavy wooden machinery through the grain and a man walked along side to drag the bundles off with a rake. The principles of the first reaper are in use today, with Improvements on the details. First was added a seat for a man who raked off the bundles, then the Self-raker. The first harvesting machine me: with great opposition because it was believed that the use of them would put the farm laborer out of business It took a long time to overcome the prejudice against these machines, just as it did to remove the objections to the sewing machine, the cotton gin.

the automobile and almost every other labor-saving invention. The first power brought to the aid of man came from the wind and water. The wind was harnessed to sails and the wind-mill was born, but It took 200 years to devise a practical machine driven by gas or coal or wood. The water-wheel has been in use for hundreds of years and is still in use in many parts of this country, doing its work; slowly, it is true, but thoroughly and well. The horse-power sweep is only a little more than a hundred years old. This was considered a wonderful improvement over wind power and the water-wheel, and men thought they had reached the limit of power ana invention. Electricity, as applied to power, is only twenty-five years old. It is now used on thousands of farms where the supply from electric railways or other large plants is available, but the cost of installation and the high price of electricity have so far prevented rapid development for farm work. The gas-engine dates from 1791. but it was not brought into economical use and practice until 1882. During the past thirty years hundreds of patents have been issued for gas engines and they are now used on thousands of farms in nearly every State in the Union. The fuel used in gas engines is gasoline and the cost of running these machines has been eo greatly reduced during the past ten years, and they are made in such a large variety of sixes, that they are available to almost every farmer, no matter what his requirements may be. Tbs' traction engine has been a optent factor in the rapid development of the big farms of the west. Formerly, a man with -a team of horsoa was able to turn over an

average of acres a day, now, a gang of plows hitched to a traction engine, managed by two men, will tarn over from 25 to 30 acres per day. Vent tracts of land in the western statM Mfcfak were considered un-

profitable under the old method o» farming, have, by means of the trao tlon and gang-plow, been brought Into profitable farms. A week*! work with 15 or 20 plows or discs dragged by a traction engine is i quarter section. On the large farms where' the traction engine is in gen oral use it is estimated that the dally cost of operating a gang of plows le about .17.00 while the cost of horses and men to do the same work would be from |17.00 to SIB.OO per day. Traction engines are used to draw harvesting machines, wagon-trains of grain to market, and do every other kind of work on the farm. Wooden plows and harrows, which were formerly used, have been al most entirely discarded for imple meats made of steel. One of thg most important implements in ths cultivation of the soil la the disc harrow. The discs are arranged in gangs and pulverize the ground at a more rapid rate and leave it in bet ter condition than any other imple ment next to the harrow. The corn-harvester and binder has been wonderfully Improved during the past two years. Only a short time ago the corn crop, the heaviest grown on the farm, had to be harvested by hand, a hill at a time, cut by a single blade. Now, a machine drawn by two horses moves along ths rows of standing corn cuts the stalks, binds them into bundles while standing upright, and slides them to the ground "ready to be put up into

shocks. This means better fodder because it Is cleaner and cures better. The modern manure-spreader has yearly added millions to the country’s crops. Instead of hauling out the -accumulation of the barns and stables and distributing It over the fields In chunks or scattering it along the rows of corn, manure is now loaded into a box mounted on wheels and when this is driven Onto the fields a set of rotary fingers rolls the manure out at the tail end of the box, distributing It evenly over every portion of the ground., ' ' The manure-spreader makes it possible to use manure as fast as made, and in this way the highest possible value Is obtained from it. This machine makes manure go very much further than when distributed in the old way. Perhaps it is not saying too much to Assert that it is the most valuable machine in use on the farm today. The scarcity of farm labor during the past few years has been a hard problem, and has caused great loss to thousands of farmers who have been unable to operate their farms to their

full capacity on thia account. Laborsaving machinery has, to, a great extent, solved thia problem, a farmer with one man may now, if he la supplied with riding plows, cultivators*,' corn planters, hay-racks, mowers, hay-loaders, corn harvesters and other machines necessary to take care of the heavy crops, do as much work, and do it better than he could with the aid of half a dozen men without machinery.

Does many times the work of the horse plow.

Does the Work of Twenty Men.

The machine that feeds the soil.

For field or road.

Revolutionizing farming methods.