86 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



consisting of a wire chain or knotted rope stretching across the field 

 and anchored at both ends. This passed through the machine as it 

 was driven across the field and dropped some grains of corn every 

 time the knot passed through a slot in the machine. It was only 

 necessary to drive backward and forward all day long until the acres 

 were planted, and then the corn could be cultivated in both direc- 

 tions. Subsequently, numerous check-row planters for corn have 

 been invented with and without fertilizer adjustments, so that several 

 rows of corn may be planted at the same time in places at regular 

 distances apart, permitting cultivating in both directions. 



Cultivators. Cultivators have been the subject of several thou- 

 sands of patents. The original cultivation of corn and other crops 

 planted in rows was by means of the hoe, but in the course of time 

 a plow was used to loosen the earth and to suppress weeds and grass, 

 being drawn twice between the rows and turning the soil against 

 one or the other. Next a tooth harrow was employed, and this was 

 drawn one way between the rows, and afterwards a cultivator with 

 small double plowshares was used. Then followed the double-shovel 

 cultivator, cutting deep or shallow, as desired, and turning the earth 

 toward two opposite rows at the same time. The implement is now 

 variously made, but it has reduced the economy of cultivation ap- 

 parently to a minimum; the farmer may now ride while the culti- 

 vator is doing its work. He cultivates the rows of his crop in both 

 directions, and the use of the hoe has been nearly, if not entirely, 

 discontinued throughout large agricultural areas. 



Harrows. Much attention also has been devoted to the inven- 

 tion of implements for harrowing and pulverizing the soil. The 

 farmer no longer drives a brush harrow over his field as of yore, nor 

 does he need to use a tooth harrow, but he has at his command disk 

 harrows, screw pulverizers, smoothing harrows, spring-tooth harrows, 

 and harrows combined with plows and seeders. 



Corn Husker. The mechanical corn husker is a machine of 

 recent invention. Previously the husking of corn was done only by 

 hand, and a peg strapped to the hand was often used for opening the 

 husks; but there is now a machine that husks the corn and at the 

 same time cuts the husks, stalks and blades into feed, the motive 

 power being steam. 



Corn Harvester. Again, we have the recent corn-harvesting 

 machine drawn by horses that cuts the cornstalks and binds them 

 into bundles at the same time. 



Cornshellers. The steam cornsheller caused a remarkable 

 change in the time and expense of the shelling of corn. In the 

 olden time corn was shelled by hand, a frying-pan handle or shovel 

 being used, the ears of corn being scraped against it, or perhaps the 

 cob of one ear was used to shell the corn from another. Then came 

 the first machine for shelling corn, a cylinder turned by a crank, 

 by which a man might shell about 40 bushels in a day. Thousands 

 of patents have been issued for cornshellers, and the culmination of 

 them is the steam-power or horse-power cornsheller, which will shell 



