Walkerton Independent, Volume 54, Number 12, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 16 August 1928 — Page 2
Walkerton Independent Published Every Thursday by THE IX D EPEN DEN T- N KWH CO. Publishers of the WALKERTON INDEPENDENT NORTH LIBERTY NEWS LAKEVILLE STANDARD ^HE ST. JOSEPII COUNTY WEEKLIES" Clem DeCoudres, Business Manager Chaxles M. Finch, Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES One Tear ....*1.50 Six Months ....... .90 Three Months 60 TERMS IN ADVANCE Entered at the post office at Walkerton, ^nd., as second-class matter. Worse than the washboarded road is the dishpanned. Wonder how much a plumber forgets when he starts on a vacation? The most essential protection of banks lies in their selection of employees. Music means music nowadays In about the same way as a dollar means a dollar. Nobody makes much money following the market; the trick is to keep ahead of it. The traveling public would appreciate round trip tickets good for a round year. When a braggart cannot point to his achievements, he boasts of his opportunities. One of the main differences betw’een Russians and Americans are a few million razors. Eggs vie with onions,” reads a headline. If the contest lasts long enough we’ll bet on the eggs. Were you one of those persons who said that we were going to have no summer whatever this year? The man who attempts to put on a whispering campaign should be made to stand in front of an amplifier. It is possible for a beautiful bathing girl to make quite a splurge at the beaches and not even enter the water. The little boy who, five years ago, was able to reach the hem of ids mother’s skirt, has grown up with it Not more than one-half of 1* per cent of the marathon dancers, it is safe to say, know what ‘‘marathon” means. Using dogs in a hunt for an airship reminds us that what primitive ways lacked in speed they made up in dependability. Another powerful and able-bodied word that doesn’t have much of anything to do in the political off season is “usurped.” What are the old-fashioned convivial sailors, who used to see an occasional sea serpent off New Jersey, seeing nowadays? At times that schoolgirl complexion is put on so thick as to suggest that the wearers’ school days are a long way in the past. If the act were to be staged today, Daniel might not move a step toward entering the lion’s den until the movie men had arrived. Fashion pages announce that the crazy quilt coat has attained considerable vogue. It ought to be appropriate for the foolish season. The goat that was sent to the hospital by the bite of a pet dog must have been caught off his guard; otherwise the dog would have needed first aid. A statistician says the three creatures skinned to provide the essentials of a college training are the raccoon, the sheep and dad; or four, counting the pig. A mothers’ club recommends “simplicity in dress” for schoolgirls. Great Scott —if schoolgirls’ costumes get much simpler the law will have to step in. There is a suspicion that in the minds of many young men “companionate marriage” doesn’t sound very much like three squares a day, homecooked. So carve your career that the university which kicked you out in your sophomore year will eventually ask you back to accept a doctorate of something. Now they are going to transmit color by television. Pretty soon it will be necessary to see that the complexion is on right before answering the telephone. A great deal is heard latelj 7 about the value of reindeer meat as food. Is this merely advance propaganda to help out the butcher when eventually he shall try to sell us some of this meat? Times have been worse down on the farm. For example, there were the days when crop failures made it possible for the family to eat 18 acres of corn at one sitting. The reason that* there were so many born leaders before the days of fast transportation and great newspapers was that there were born followers. One of the pleasures of the millionaire is to refer to his palatial country residence as “the shack.” Fairy Story: “The thing I like to do best,” said the professional humorist’s wife, “is just to sit around evenings laughing at his jokes.” If it took an experienced admiral ten years to discover that gobs are called gobs, he will probably never know what gobs call admirals. The difference between the people and the politicians is that the people know what they want, and they sometimes get it.
"A New PATENT CRAIN CUTTER Worked by Horae Power"*-^^ Kra WmEMB- Wa"' ?wW Sassas® MB frQrnYatelfaiv'&r.siiyPrass''.Pa‘jeant of Americs" ;
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
HESE are the days when the song of the harvester is heard in the land and every machine, whether it be a horse-drawn binder clattering ! around a little patch of oats on some rocky hillside farm in the > East or a mighty motor-propelled “combine” roaring its way through the golden sea which stretches out to the horizon in the wheat fields of the West, is adding its voice in a paean of praise to the memory of an American farm boy, who, less
4
than a hundred years ago, wrote the first chapter in the Romance of the Reaper. Cyrus Hall McCormick was his name; Steele's Tavern, Ya., was the place, and July 23, 1831, was the date. “Whoever wishes to understand the making of the United States must read the life of Cyrus Hall McCormick,” writes his biographer, Herbert N. Casson. “No other man so truly represented the dawn of the industrial era—the grapple of the pioneer with the crudities of a new country, the replacing of muscle with machinery, and the establishment of better ways and better times in farm and city alike. . . . The life of McCormick spanned the heroic period of our industrial advancement, when great things were done by great individuals. To know McCormick is to know the type of man it was who created the United States of the Nineteenth century. . . . He was not brilliant. He was not picturesque. He was no caterer for fame or favor. But he was as necessary as bread. He fed his country as truly as Washington created it and Lincoln preserved it. He abolished our agricultural peasantry so effectively that we have bad to import muscle from foreign countries ever since. And he added an immense province to tiie new empire of mind over matter, the expansion of which has been and is now the highest and most Important of all human endeavors.” The same year that saw the birth of Lincoln, the savior of the nation, saw the birth of McCormick, the bread-giver of the nation —1809. His father, Robert McCormick, was a well-to-do Virginia farmer, having some 1,800 acres of land in Rockbridge county, and the owner, too. of two grist-mills, two sawmills, a smelting furnace, a distillery and a blacksmith shop. The father was something of an Inventive genrus and in the little log cabin biacksmith shop he hammered and fashioned several new types of farm machinery—a hempstake, a clover puller, a bellows and a threshing machine. But more important was the fact that he was ambitions to invent a practical reaper which would do away with the laborious method of the time —the cradle. He had made one harvester, a queer contraption, consisting of a row of curved sickles fastened to upright posts, against which the grain was whirled by revolving rods, and pushed from behind by two horses. He tried it in the harvest of 1816, but it was a failure, for the grain bunched and tangled around the sickles. Neither this failure, nor the good-natured derision of his neighbors disheartened him. He continued with his experiments in secret —behind the locked doors of his workshop, after working far into the night on it. Only his sons were allowed to see what he was doing, and one of them, Cyrus, who had inherited some of the inventive ability of his father, became as much interested in the problem as his parent. By the summer of 1831 the elder McCormick had so improved bis reaper that he believed success was in sight and he gave it»a trial. But again it was a failure. It cut the grain fairly well, but it failed to solve the problem of handling it properly after it was •cut, for this machine threw it out in a tangled heap. In that respect it was no better than other reapers which men had tried to make. For it should be mentioned in passing that the MpCormicks were not the only ones who were trying to solve the problem of harvesting grain by machinery. In 1826 Rev. Patrick Bell of Carmyllio. Forfarshire, Scotland, a farmer's son, brought out a device which operated a series of scissors fastened on a knife board, but never perfected it to any practical use. Other would-be inventors in both Europe and America invented reapers which, in Casson's words, based upon the theory that “grain always grew straight and was perfectly willing to be cut,” would cut “ideal grain in ideal fields ” But “to cut actual grain in actual fields,” especially when the grain was tangled and part of it lying on the ground, was another matter. It was to meet this problem that young Cyrus McCormick took up his father’s work when the elder McCormick became satisfied that his principle of operation could not succeed and abandoned further effort to perfect his reaper. “He faced the problem worst end first”—by seeking to perfect a machine that would cut grain that lay in a fallen and tangled mass. If he could accomplish that the harvesting of grain that stood up straight was assured. As he saw the problem, it involved certain fundamental factors, and these fundamental factors, seven in all, he incorporated in his machine. Crude as was their manifestation in his first clumsy machine, the fact remains that in all the harvesters which have since been developed, these seven factors are still the b^sic factors. These factors are a straight knife with a back and forth cutting motion, a divider at the end of the blade to separate the grain that is to be cut from the grain that is left standing, a row
Might Have Appeared Just a Bit Personal
They were discussing the imperfection of man. The skeptical fellow held that human beings weren't very wonderful after all, and the parson didn’t agree with him. “But surely,” protested the scoffer, "you must admit that man is a bungled job? Why, even you, in your work, must have noted many defects in the human organism, and have thought of better physical contrivances.”
/ t \ / WcYmott. - O IMcCQRMICK O aBt^INVENTIJS OF THF MgTT " REAPER WAS Fl Cmtw COllpi' HE - v- w V & ''’ : - ' Photos Courtesy of JtfterHobonsJ tfor^estor Co. of fingers at the end of the blade to support the grain while it was being cut. the revolving reel to lift up and straighten the grain that has fallen, a platform to catch tin* cut grain as it fell, a side draught that will pull the machine forward instead of pushing it and finally building the whole reaper on one big power whe< 1 which carries the weight and operates the reel and the cutting blade. Having worked out the problem by incorporating these basic principles in his machine, young Me Cormiek hastened to complete his reaper in time lor the harvest of TS3I. For a time it appeared doubtful that he would be able to have it ready for use while there was still grain available upon which to try it. But at his request a small pitch of wheat on his father’s farm was left standing and one dtty early in July, watched onl\ by members of his family, the experiment was tried. As he drove his machine against the yellow grain, the reel revolved and swept tin* wheat down upon the knife, which ehittered back and forth ami laid th-* cut grain in a shimmering golden swath upon the platform from which it was raked off by John Cash, one of the elder McCormick’s "hired men." The new machine “was as clumsy as a Red River ox-cart, but it reaped!” Young McCormick immediately set to work to improve the faults in the reel and divider which this-first test revealed and a few davs later there was posted on the rail fence surrounding a wheat field near Steele's Tavern this sign: “In this field on July 23, IS3I, will be tried a new patent grain cutter, worked by horse power, invented by C. 11. McCormick.” Accordingly on that date the first public test of the reaper was made. Details as to that test seem to be few except for the statements from two different sources that “Here with two horses he cut six acres of oats in an afternoon. . . . Such a thing nt that time was incredible. It was equal to the work of six laborers with scythes, or 24 peasants with sickles,” and that “As his clumsy machine clattered about the field, the skepticism of the handful of farmers who had come to witness the attempt was changed to admiration.” More complete is the record and more dramatic as to incident is the story of his public exhibition near the town of Lexington, Va„ IS miles from the McCormick farm, the next year. That occasion is described by Casson as follows: Fully one hundred people were present—several political leaders of local fame, farmers, professors, laborers, and a group of negroes who frolicked and shouted in uncomprehending joy. At the start it appeared as though this new contraption of a machine, which was unlike anything else that human eyes had ever seen, was to prove a grotesque failure. The field was hilly, and ‘he reaper jolted and slewed so violently that John Ruff, the owner of the field, made a loud protest “Here! This won’t do,” he shouted. “Stop your horses. You are rattling the heads off my wheat.” This was a hard blow to the young farmerinventor. Several laborers, who were openly hostile to the machine as their rival in the labor market, began to jeer with great satisfaction. “It’s a humbug,” said one. “Give me the old cradle yet. boys,” said another. These men were hardened and bent and calloused with the drudgery of harvesting. They worked 12 and 14 hours a day for less than a nickel an hour. But they were as resentful toward a reaper as the drivers of stage coaches w-ere to railroads, or as hackmen of today are towards automobiles. At this moment of apparent defeat, a man of striking appearance, who had been watching the floundering of the reaper with great interest, came to the rescue “I’ll give you a fair chance, young man," he said “That field of wheat on the other side of the fence belongs to me. Pull down the fence and cross over.” This friend in need was the Honorable William Tyler, who was several years later a candidate for the governorship of Virginia. His offer was at once accepted by Cyrus McCormick and as the second field was fairly level he laid low six acres of wheat before sundown. This was no more than he
The parson was serious, then smiled. “Yes, I have,” he replied. "You see, when I want to shut out anything disagreeable from my sight I can always draw down my eyelids to cover my eyes; but unfortunately I haven’t any flaps to my ears.’’ March Became Long Hike Commander-In-Chief Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood has completed
a march of inspection that became a tramping trip along the northeastern frontier of Burma. After inspecting three battalions of military police at Myitkyma and Bhamo, he marched 230 miles from Bhamo to Lashion. Owing to heavy rains, GO miles of mud were covered on foot in three days. In addition to this the swollen Sinveli river prevented his car from making the passage from Nam Khan th Muse and Birdwood and his staff walked 25 miles over the Loilun range, 6,300 feet high, down to the Hosl valley.
J i/ i \ !■ ar had done in IS3I, but on this occasion he had conquered a larger and more incredulous audience. After the sixth acre was cut, the reaper was driven with great acclaim into the town of Lexington and placed on view in the courthouse square. Here it was carefully studied by a Professor Bradshaw of the Lexington Female academy, who finally announced in a loud and emphatic voice. •'This—machine —is worth—a hundred — thousand — dollars” This praise from “a scholar mid a gentleman,” ns McCormick afterwards called him. was very encouraging. And still more so was the quiet word of praise from Robert McCormh k. who said. "It makes me feel proud to have a son do what I could not do.” But even though he bad demonstrated to the \ skeptical farmers and the hostile laborers that he had invented a practical reaper, the full measure j of recognition which was to come to the young | Virginia farmer inventor was to be denied him for | some time. For three years after that first public ; demonstration, with virtually no capital he worked I in his father's shop perfecting Ins invention. In I the meantime < >bed Hussey of Nantucket. Mass., had invented a teaper and in 1833 he secured a patent tor it. thus depriving Mct'ormick of the I honor ot securing the fust < l>< ini rc< ognition tor his invention, since the latter did not secure his patent until ls.il. Even after McCormick had per- । fected bis reaper and demonstrated its usefulness, : he had difficulty in selling it, for the farmers i wen* slow to give up the old fashioned way of I harvesting and to adopt this “new fungled" ma- ' chine. In the Lexington Union for September 28, 1833, he inserted the first advertisement of his reaper j giving four testimonials from farmers and offering i the machines for SSO each. But no one bought. | The farmers who had given their testimonials tiad merely seen the reaper work and had neither the money nor the inclination to buy themselves. In fact it was nine years before McCormick found a farmer who had both tlie money and the inclina- i tion to purchase one of the new machines. But I despite many discouragements, including the loss | of his farm when lie was caught in the depression I which followed the panic of is:;7. he persisted in i his determination to market his machines. By keeping everlastingly at it. he sold seven reapers in 1542, twenty-nine in 1843 and forty in 1844. By that year he had also made converts to his idea and he began to sell agencies for the reaper in several counties in Virginia. Then orders for the \ machine began to come from other states. Eventually “McCormick left his quiet Virginia home ttnd put his fortune to the hazard in the new West of the Ohio valley. Hi* establi^iied a shop in Cincinnati where, in 1545, one hundred machines were built. But with the rare foresight of genius, he saw in the little city of Chicago, numbering scarcely more than 10,(XM> souls, the strategic center of the West, and in the level grain fields of the prairie plains the great market for his invention. In 1848 his new factory on the shores of Lake Michigan turned out five hundred machines. Yet this was but the beginning of his triumphs.” The history of his final triumph is written in the history of agriculture since that time, one of the most amazing developments in the story’ of mankind. The story of that development with its statistics of the number of acres of land under cultivation, the number of men employed, the number of bushels of grain harvested each year—statistics which deal with numbers difficult for the human mind to grasp and realize their significance —is too big a story to lie included in tins article. It has to do only with the history-making event 97 years ago when Cyrus McCormick demonstrated his “new patent grain cutter” which was to revolutionize agriculture and affect not only the history of the United States, but of the world as well, as have few other inventions. Early this year, a simple marker (shown above) was erected near the spot where 'ne did this and the news stor.v of the ceremony there recalled for a moment to a busy world the name of the man who invented the first practical reaper. But every year millions and millions of new memorials are erected to him in the grain fields of the world. They are the shocks of wheat and oats and barley and rye which dot the landscape during the harvest season and the swelling chorus of praise for Ins name winch accompanies the erection of these myriad monuments is the hum of the reaper as it clicks its way through the fields of golden . grain.
She Had Last Laugh Addressing the Women’s Conservative club in I vndon recently, Mrs. Stanley Baldwin wife of Prime Minister Baldwin, warned her hearers that she would expose one of the secrets of her married life. She asserted that some of the bitterest differences that she and her husband ever had were over women’s suffrage. "But it’s all over now,” she declared, "for my side won.” Dun —the future tense of due.
Farm Business Analysis Helps — Reviews Are Source of Valuable Information for the Farmers. ^Prepared bv the United States Department ot Agriculture. I Economic reviews by state agricultural colleges and the United States Department of Agriculture in which the farm situation and general supply and demand factors that affect agriculture are analyzed are becoming an Important new service for farmers. The reviews are prepared by trained farm business analysts. They present facts and interpretations intended to guide producers in adjusting production to market demands. A survey just completed by a com mittee of the outlook conference of the i United States Department of Agricui- ' fare shows that IS state agricultural colleges in addition to the federal De partment of Agriculture now are is suing, monthly, or more frequently, publications which make economic information available to farmers in more or less popular form. Several additional states are contemplating tlie issuance of similar publications. Start of Service. Tlie application of this type of service which is freely used in the in dustrial world, by furnishing farmers witli economic analyses of agricultural conditions, was started shortly after the termination of the war with the issuance by the Unietd States Depart ment of Agriculture of a publication called "The Agricultural Situation.” The publication, a brief monthly sum mary of economic conditions and pros pects affecting farmers, was in quick demand as presenting basic facts which could be used by farmers to make readjustments to changed eco.nomic conditions in domestic an.i world markets. Demonstration of the need by farm I ers for this type of information led to the establishment of similar service by the state agricultural colleges, until now more than one-third of the col leges are issuing economic reviews i dealing with farm conditions. The | characteristic common to most of i these publications is an effort to pre s^nt the basic factors which make up the current picture of production, move | ment. consumption, and price of farm j products. Some states hold chiefly to the presentation of their own re search results: others Interpret the current data of worhl-wide origin. Part of Broad Plan. The economic reviews are part of a broad program in which the United States Department of Agriculture amt the state colleges are linked together and which seeks to help tlie farmer t< | adjust his business ae profitably as ! possible to the requirements of the ' market. The educational aspects ol , । these publications, says the enmmiuee have been and should l»e strictly ad j hered to. Thinning Is Important Operation With Apples An apple crop of 1.560.090 barrels is , I in prospect . for this year, compared | i witii 800.000 bushels in 1927, and ; ' growers should thin apples so that i I none but tlie highest quality will reach ! ; the market, according to R. S. Marsh University of Illinois. Apple growers of the Northwest who produce the j fancy ten-cent apples consider thin ; ning an Important operation in the ; : growing of fruit. “Thinning varieties of apple s< that only one fruit is left on each spur j i is a standard Middle Western recoin mendation.” he says. “Apples of vari ! ; elies like Northwestern Greening an<l i Wolf River get big enough with' tn ' 1 thinning. Yellow Transparent, Dutch ess, Jonathan, Delicious. Grimes, Ben Davis, Gano. Winesap and others are varieties that respond profitably through size increase, to thinning.” Find Harmful Worms on . Several of Bush Fruits Currant worms damage currants ami gooseberries, according to information which has been collected by R. S. Her rick of the lowa Horticultural society These worms injure the crop by eat iug the leaves on the bushes, thereby causing the berries to be small due to lack of proper nourishment. Where these worms are present, spray the bushes with a solution of one-halt ounce of lead arsvnate per gallon ot 1 water. If there is mildew on the i leaves, one ounce of dry lime-sulpbui ■ should also be added. Delicacy for Cows Good pasture grass holds a place in the list of delicacies for dairy cows j which no other feed can quite fill. The ability of grass to produce milk is generally overestimated, and a cow cannot maintain a heavy flow of milk on grass alone. Cows giving more than | 25 pounds of milk a day or recently - fresh cows should receive grain in proportion of production. > »> > »>> » > ♦ > > > > > ♦, J Agricultural Hints 5 > >: ♦: >: >: > > > ♦ > > > >’ > ♦: > > * > ♦ > ♦ > :♦ The leading potato growing state Is now Minnesota. • « • In the United States ther* are 81. (MNUMHI acres of idle land fl’ only for I growing trees, that must be put to work. * • • Many successful pig producers add tankage or linseed meal to the mineral . mixture to make it more palatable to ' the growing pigs. Soy bean plants are somewhat more | tolerant of frost than corn, but otherwise the temperature relations of the two crops are very similar. • • • Soy beans prefer soils which are In good tilth and well supplied with organic matter and moisture, but thev will make very good growth on sandy or poor soils, if fertilizer is used and the soil is not too acid. The crop responds to lime, but is fairly tolerant of acid soils.
M (W A R C H QUALITY FOOD PRODUCTS set the standard. If you paid a dollar a pound you could not r buy better food products than tho^e you find packed under Fj the Monarch label. Reid. Murdoch 8C Co. _. | jSa Eitabluhcd 1853 General Offices, Chicago, 111. , No Jaguars Wanted Hearing an automobile crash. William J. Slattery of Washington, D. CL, opened his street door to see if he could be of any assistance. As he did. in popi»ed what he thought was the house cat. Returning from the accident, his wife met him with the information. “That was a funny kind of a cat you let in.” Slattery took a look and decided she was right. With the help of three men he finally got kitty into a crate and learned that it was a young jaguar, the pet of a sailor who had been giving it an airing in an automobile involved In the crash. V-" r% L 1 i.'-, _ -J DON’T suffer headaches, or any or those pains that Bayer Aspirin ran end in a hurry! Physicians prescribe it, and approve its free use, for it does not affect the heart. Every druggist has it, but don't fail to ask the druggist for Bayer. And don’t take any but the box that says Bayer, with the word genuine printed in red: Aspirin is the trade mark of I’ayer Manufacture of Monoaceticacldester of SalleyUcaeia |/.x> sv;issco TREATMENT 7 *• Restores Color to Faded Hair. ■ \ k Removes Dandruff. Stops FalLng ' / k Hair. Makes Hair Grow. I-. 29. At diuggists or direct. .. Swissce Bair ^reataeat Ca. GnaaMti, Che Italy Bars Bargaining Tourists tu Italy who follow the adI vice given in guidebooks as to bargain j stores and shops may now find it very j difficult, if not impossible, to get even a few cents taken off the prices asked, i Following the revaluation of the lira, u decree lias been issued making fixed I prices obligatory on all shopkeepers, i Only in the case of high-class jewelry, j valuable pictures and antique furni- ; ture, may bargaining still be resorted [ to legally. Why He Missed Her The widower had just started in to tell a story when he suddenly broke down and began sobbing like a child. “Why. what's the matter?” we I asked him. “Why. how can 1 tel! a story without my wife here to butt in with corrections and advice ami finally taking over the job of finishing it herself?” he wept. A M'x-Up “Porter, why haven't you brought i my luggage here, the train is just go- | ing?” “The luggage is all right, sir. It is i you who are in the wrong train.’ — Cologne Kolner Zeitung. | GREAT RESULTS FROKWOUND Read How This Medicin o Helped This Woman • Brainerd, Minn.—“l read about Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Com- ' ■ r >und in a n- .spsper and I have fro™ it 3 W Ssx e i°; o . h r 'r; v I was nervous . my housework and <?o < ’ - outs Ie also. I mu-t say th it 1 ydia I . Phdtham’s Vegetable (\ :a; un i has done wonders for me an I r • v n uhl I be without it. I - ’ can -ii tk a good word for it.”—'lns. Jim BMITH, R. R. 7, Brainerd, Minnesota. F Wonderful and sure Make® your ®k : 3 b- aut’ful. also cure® eczema. Prtcetl ^5 t'reckirO^ment re more® freckles Used a^Hover forty years 1’.25 and Beauty a booklet sent free. Asajcur dealer or»r:te