Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 24, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1901 — Harvesting Corn By Machinery. [ARTICLE]

Harvesting Corn By Machinery.

The time is almost here when all the processes of corn harvesting in Jasper county will "be done by machinery; and the sight of a farmer cutting corn with a corn knife, or husking it with a “husking peg,” will be about as rare as to see a man cutting oats with a cradle or hay with a scythe. The McCormicks and the Deerings now put out corn harvesters that are as perfect machines and do as good work as the same companies’ oats and wheat harvesters. They out the standing corn, bind it into bundles of convenient size, and dump enough of these bundles in a pile to make a good shook. They out one row of corn at a swath, and as they plug right along without any stops of consequence, it must be a comparative* ly easy matter to cut 6 to 8 acres a day with one of them. That these corn harvesters have come to stay is amply proven by the number that have been sold here, this year. O. A. Roberts has sold 8 McCormicks, and Renicker Bros, 7 Deerings. They cost $125. But the cutting and binding of the corn by machinery does not end the process, any more than the cutting and binding of oats and wheat. And in the place of the threshing machine for small grain, is the husker and shredder for corn. Warner & Collins have sold eight large machines of this kind this fall,' and Mr. Roberts has sold one or two of a smaller make. Theshing machine owners generally buy these big machines, and run them by the same traction engines they thresh with. They cost about $550. The small ones cost $2lO. The big machines will husk and clean in good shape, about 800 bushels of corn a day, and shred the stalks and leaves into the best quality of winter feed for horses and cattle.