Vol. LXVII, No. 3061. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 26, 1908. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
CUTTING CORN BY MACHINERY. 
When Horses Do the Lifting. 
Several readers have asked recently what a corn 
harvester is expected to do. The picture on this page, 
Fig. 349, gives a good answer to the question. This 
machine is at work in a cornfield located in the Hud¬ 
son Valley. The owner bought a farm in order to 
interest his boys in farming, as well as to provide a 
future home. By means of improved machinery the 
boys are able to plow, harrow, plant, cultivate and 
harvest—a good team of horses doing the work of 
half a dozen men. You will see that the harvester is 
working in bad corn—that is, many of the stalks are 
bent over. While, of course, the machine does the 
best work when the stalks are all up straight it is quite 
remarkable how it can pick up the bent stalks, 
straighten them out, tie them into a fair bundle, and 
drop them off behind. The problem of the corn har¬ 
vester was a hard one for the inventors to solve. At 
first they tried sleds which had broad, sharp knives at 
the side. These were pulled along the rows, the 
knives slicing off the 
stalks and a man riding 
on the sled or following 
to tie the stalks into 
bundles. Then came a 
machine like a wheat 
header, which sliced off 
the stalks and loaded 
them upon a wagon 
driven alongside. Now 
has come the modern 
machine which cuts the 
stalks and ties them into 
bundles with twine. 
To show how machin¬ 
ery helps a farmer in 
corn cutting and silo 
filling we reprint part of 
an article which ap¬ 
peared last year. 
I will give you how a 
New York State man works 
at the job of silo filling in 
Illinois. I go to the field 
with a corn harvester, cut 
five or six wagon loads, not 
hound, fime required about 
one hour; take low-wheel 
wagon with hayrack, flat 
top, seven by 10 feet in 
size, top of the rack three 
feet above the ground. I 
load stalks across the rack as high as convenient, the 
butts one way ; this will make a load of a ton or more. 
Drive wagon to cutter and blower, start gasoline engine, 
unload from the butt side. A fair sort of a man should 
put the load through the cutter in 15 to 20 minutes, mak¬ 
ing six or eight loads per day. Thus one man lias put in 
73 loads of corn in silo at the cost of $3 for gasoline. 
I his outfit of machinery gives one man a great ad¬ 
vantage, and shows what a farmer can do to solve 
the farm labor problem if he can raise the needed 
capital. 
Facts About Corn Harvesters. 
With dairy farmers and stock raisers at this time 
an average to cut corn and bind it in medium-sized 
bundles with the harvester as it does to cut it by 
hand. There is, however, a saving in handling the 
bundles over that required in handling loose corn 
cut by hand. This saving generally amounts to the 
cost of the twine, or possibly a little more in some 
cases. Where low wagons arc used in hauling the 
corn this saving is not so great as it is where high 
wagons are used, as loose corn can be loaded on to 
low wagons as easily as bundles, while bundles can 
be loaded on to high wagons much more easily than 
loose corn. 
As a rule it will not pay to buy a corn harvester 
for one silo. A good plan, which is working success¬ 
fully in many places, is for one man in a neighbor¬ 
hood to buy a harvester and then change work with 
his neighbors in filling silos, or he can cut his neigh¬ 
bors’ corn at a fair compensation, 75 cents or $1 per 
acre being about the average price charged, the per¬ 
son owning the corn to furnish the twine. Anyone 
having a small field of corn can hire it harvested at 
this rate when a machine is available, and save the 
A CORN HARVESTER AT WORK IN THE FIELD. Fig. 349. 
trouble of hiring and looking after men to do the 
work. A good machine and three horses will cut 
and bind from six to eight acres a day when the 
corn is in good shape for harvesting and on fairly 
level land. By using the corn stubble cutter attach¬ 
ment on the harvester the field is left perfectly free 
from long stubble, which interferes with the free 
use of machines in working the land after the corn 
has been removed. One disadvantage in using a har¬ 
vester is that it knocks off a few ears which must be 
picked up later, or they can be saved by turning cattle 
into the field when finished to clean up the refuse. 
Corn is a crop which must be harvested at just the 
v^the question of filling the silo cheaply and economic- right time if its greatest value is to be realized as 
ally is of paramount importance. During the past 12 silage. It will not pay to wait until frost turns it 
or 13 years several practical corn harvesting machines white for some one to come along with a harvester, 
have been put upon the market, and are now quite Neither will it pay to buy one for a small number of 
generally used where corn is grown in large quanti- acres if help can be secured at fair wages. In many 
Hies. It . often requires close figuring to determine cases it would be safe to invest in a machine if 50 
whether it will pay to buy a corn binder or not. Local or 60 acres of corn are to be harvested. By planting 
conditions, such as the price of labor and the difficul- at different dates, from 50 to 100 acres can be cut 
ties of securing men at just the right time, must be with one harvester while it is in proper condition, 
taken into consideration. It costs about the same on * c. s. greene. 
THE PASSING OF SEED GROWING IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 
Nearly a half century ago I became enthusiastically 
interested in the delights of gardening, when a boy 
getting a small but carefully selected collection of 
seeds from the late B. K. Bliss, perhaps the founder 
of the mail order business in this line. And what 
seeds these were! I well remember my delight in 
growing the Black Spanish watermelon, every one 
upon the vines thoroughbred—having the same mark¬ 
ings, one weighing 30 pounds, one 28, and another 27 
pounds. Pretty good for a small variety that season! 
AncT cabbage and the other vegetables, with nearly 
every individual close to perfect in form and to the 
description in the book. I then got a liking for the 
seed catalogues that stuck to me for life. But, alas! 
the rude shocks I get nowadays. Let my experience 
in these late days tell. This season I planted seeds 
obtained from two of what are known as the four 
most reliable seed houses (as stated by one of the 
same) of the United States. Now for the results: 
Radish seed, 50 per cent 
fail to produce anything 
but a seed stalk. From 
another house, not 10 
per cent produced a 
bulb. Cabbage, an aver¬ 
age of 50 per cent fail 
to produce a head. Seed 
of this vegetable planted 
by the tenant on my 
farm, and bought from 
a Seattle house, brought 
forth the wild mustard 
of our fields. Beets, 25 
per cent run up a seed 
stalk without producing 
a bulb. Carrots, better. 
This is detail enough of 
the facts. 
As is well known, the 
Puget Sound country is 
doing a good deal in the 
line of growing certain 
varieties of vegetable 
seeds, and I was lately 
in the field of one of the 
growers of cabbage seed. 
This grower has dis¬ 
covered a short cut 
in the growing of 
this seed, viz., getting the plants started so late in 
the season that they would pass through the Winter 
without heading he was saved the labor of covering 
to protect from frost (necessary here when the plant 
heads and ripens). These plants at once on the ap¬ 
proach of warm weather in Spring would throw up a 
seed stalk, and he was enabled to get twice the num¬ 
ber of same in the rows. How many generations of 
such plants and the habit of head forming would be 
eliminated entirely? We know that our fields here 
are infested with the wild turnip, the progeny a few 
generations removed from the cultivated variety of 
our garden. Not one of the plants produces bulbs. 
The moral is plain. The seed growing business has 
to go back to the slower, plodding, producers of 
northern Europe. We have the climatic conditions, 
but, alas! have also the “get-rich-quick” American 
sentiment and practice to offset it. j. f. c. 
Washington. 
R. N.-Y.—No one knows better than the farmer or 
truck gardener how much depends upon the quality 
of seeds. No wonder many progressive men are 
driven to the production of their own stock. 
L 
