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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A LITTLE WOOD STILL APPEARS IN THE HARROW 



The thorn bush dragged over the plowed ground was the first harrow; 

 the one shown in the picture is the latest; and a long gap separates the 

 two. The earliest was wholly of wood, while the latest has little, but 

 enough to make it efficient. Photograph by courtesy of the International 

 Harvester Company, Chicago. 



which once were sown broadcast by hand; planters for 

 corn, and special machinery for planting other crops. 



Cultivators constitute another class. They do the work 

 between the planting and the harvesting. Corn, cotton, 

 cane, and other crops, including vegetables, that are 

 planted in rows, call for cultivators, and the kinds are 

 many. Nearly every sort of crop has been provided 

 with a series of cultivators fitted to its particular needs. 



Harvesting machinery belongs 

 in another class, and it is the 

 longest list of all ; for harvesting 

 includes not only the cutting of 

 grain, digging of root vegetables, 

 and stacking or barning that 

 which must be kept for winter, 

 but the grain must be threshed, 

 and almost every kind of crop is 

 handled by special machinery at 

 some stage of its harvesting or 

 curing. Hay has machinery of 

 its own; so has corn; so have 

 other grains, fruits, and root 

 crops. There are mowers, ted- 

 ders, and rakes, reapers, thresh- 

 ers, cutters, stackers, and a long 



line of others. Lists would be tedious because of their 

 length ; at the same time, they show how great has been 

 the inventive genius of Americans in providing scores of 

 excellent implements to do the work on farms where a 

 few simple tools sufficed not many years ago. 



The simple tool had about reached the limit of its pos- 

 sibilities; and agriculture would have remained station- 

 ary had not improved appliances been invented. The 

 wheat crops of today could not be harvested with the 

 sickles, cradles, and rakes that were in use in 1830, even 

 if the plows and harrows of that time could have pre- 

 pared the land and planted the crops. If the wheat of 

 the present time, after being harvested, depended upon 

 the threshing facilities of 1830, most of the grain would 

 be lost, because it could not be handled. The "ground- 

 hog" threshing machine of that day would be as incapable 

 of saving the present wheat crop, as the prairie schooners 

 of the same period would be incapable of carrying the 

 grain to market. 



Farm machinery and transportation facilities improved 

 and increased side by side. America's commerce and 

 population were growing and the demand came for better 

 facilities than had been known in the past. 



It is not necessary to detract from the importance of 

 steel in the phenomenal expansion of agriculture; but 

 wood's place has been no less indispensable, and per- 

 haps it has even gone ahead of steel in some essential 

 particulars. The forests have done a work at least equal 

 to that done by the mines; but the importance of wood 

 is not confined to the past. It continues without any 



FILLING THE FARM SILO 



Everything here is up to date. The wooden silo is the most pretentious thing_ in view, and the tractor, wagon and silage cutter are doing the 

 work of converting the green corn into approved provinder for the following winter. Silos by thousands are built yearly, and every silo calls for 

 the latest machines. Photograph by the International Harvester Company, Chicago. 



