280 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMER. 



Sept. 



BcTRSoNs Binder. — " Last fall, in my notes 

 from the Iowa State Fair, I gave the favorable 

 testimony of farmers who had used this machine, 

 or seen it operate, and my own favorable impres- 

 sions of it, from what I was able to see of its 

 operation. 



The editor of the Illinois Farmer copied my 

 article, and doubted if the binder would prove 

 practical, because no attenpt in that direction 

 had yet proved successful ! Inexorable logic ! 

 A Chicago echo pronounced the thing foolish- 

 ness, and proved me a fool [mechanically] be- 

 cause of the cautious commendation I had given 

 it. Other Eastern wiseacres, oracles of rural 

 wisdom, pooh-poohed at the idea of the thing. 



"With this condition of mind among cotempo- 

 raneous writers, and the humiliating idea of my- 

 self which their inflictions had given me, what 

 was my gratification to find Burson on the 

 ground, with his binder attachment to a J. H. 

 Manny machine, binding the grain as fast as it 

 was cut, before it left the platform ; and to see 

 these same Sucker editors following it with open- 

 mouthed wonder and a grin of gratification, 

 garrulously asserting the triumph of the binder! 

 — as innocently, too, as if they had never given 

 Bragdon a raking down for his presumptuous 

 opinion ! But the retribution was a pleasant one 

 no doubt. The saving the wages of four or five 

 hands in the harvest field, and their board and 

 the consequent labor in the household, is no 

 trifling achievement, to say nothing of the sav- 

 ing of grain which results from binding it before 

 it leaves the platform of the reaper. It requires 

 but three men to do the work of cutting and 

 binding the grain — the driver, the raker, and the 

 binder. The grain is handed to the binder by 

 the raker, who uses an ingeniously -made thumb- 

 fork to gather and compress it. The binder 

 piiuts the arm of the machine over the bundle, 

 compressing it tightly, gives a crank two or three 

 quick turns, the bundle is fbound, tied, a jerk 

 opens the arms, and it is kicked on the ground. 

 All this is done in much less time than I have 

 consumed in writing it. It seemed to be the 

 conviction of all who siw it operate that it was 

 a success ; and that the hand-raking machines 

 could only compete with the self-rakers by odop- 

 ting the binder. The bundles are bound with 

 small wire, and as tightly and well as the aver- 

 age work of any five men that follow a machine 

 in the field. The wire costs from twelve to fif- 

 teen cents per acre. Objection was made to these 

 wire bands, because it would require more time to 

 cut them, and then to see that they did not go 

 through the machine with the straw, and wind 

 about the cylinder of the thrasher. I found 

 that a pocket knife would sever the wire band as 

 quickly and easily as if it were straw ; and if 

 the wire will affect the work of the thra her, 

 -which I doubt, a little practice will enable the 

 band cutter to retain it with one hand and cut It 

 with the other." 



— The above we cut from the Western Edito- 

 rial of the Kural New Yorker, and now that Mr. 

 Burson has so far perfected hia machine that it 

 has the capacity to bind a six foot swarth, we 

 congratulate him on his eucoess. 



That the binder will take its place in the har- 

 vest field, and do away with hand binding we 

 have no doubt. But this is not the only binder 

 that we are to have, as we learn that others are 

 being perfected that may compete with Burson 

 for the patronage of the Western farmer. That 

 Burson has put the first successful binder in op- 

 eration^ there can be no dispute. 



••» 



A Hint to Sugar Beet Growers. — Editor 

 Chicago Tribune ; Will you be kind enough to 

 call the attention of the various parties experi- 

 menting with the sugar beet seed, imported by 

 Wm. H. Belcher, Esq., to the necessity of hilling 

 their sugar beets, so as te keep the roots under 

 ground. Only by a strict observation of this, 

 and by keeping the field clean of weeds so as to 

 admit air and sun, they will be successful of 

 producing a good quality of sugar beet. The 

 root has a great tendency to grow out of ground, 

 impoverishing thereby materially. Having ob- 

 served that many think indifferently about these 

 most essential points, and being very anxious to 

 preserve this fall enough of good sugar beets, 

 to demonstrate on a large scale, that sugar can 

 be made as cheaply in lUinuis as in Louisiana, 

 you will not only oblige Mr. Belcher and the sub- 

 scriber, but also the whole community, by giv- 

 ing this note a place in your columns. 

 Very truly yours, 



R. W. Bender, 

 Supt. Chicago Sugar Refinery. 



Coal Tar for Fence Posts. — A correspon- 

 of the "Country Gentleman;" having recom- 

 mended the mixing of resin with coal tar for 

 fence posts, another correspondent writes on the 

 subject, as follows : 



*'I believe that the resin in superfluous. In- 

 closed you will find a chip which was taken from 

 a fence post set five years ago, smeared with coal 

 tar alone. It was trken out three or four inches 

 below the surface, where a post usually com- 

 mences to decay. The adjoining post, split from 

 the same log, [and I should think the two lay 

 side by side,] set at the same time, but not coal- 

 tared, has decayed so that you can kick into it 

 more than an inch. This, in my estimation, 

 proves the efficiency of coal tar. In applying 

 the tar, I think that the timber should be well 

 seasoned. Heat the tar, letting it boil a few 

 minutes ; then apply hot. An old paint brush is 

 the best thing that I have ever used for putting 

 it on. Cover the whole surface of the post that 

 is to remain in the ground, and from eight to 

 ten inches of that above. After it has dried, 

 which is usually in one or two weeks, tar again 

 as before, and as soon as the dry posts are ready 

 to set. If Mr. Rogers will try the experiment, I 

 think that he will find that coal tar alone will be 

 as efi&cient as though resin were mixed with it." 



House Fair, Chicago.— Don't forget this fair; 

 it will be the great show of the season. 



