Vol. LXXI. No. 4167. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 7, 1912. 
WEEKLY. $1.00 PER YEAR 
MACHINERY ON THE FARM. 
What It Has Done for Farmers. 
A number of years ago >the writer was at one of the 
ports of Lake Erie, and there for the first time 
watched the work of transferring coal from the rail¬ 
road cars to the hold of the lake vessels. At that time 
men were shoveling the coal from the cars into huge 
buckets, which were swung by means of a crane from 
the cars and dumped into the hold of the vessel. Men 
were down in the hold of the vessel stowing away or 
moving back the coal, and as they came up occasion¬ 
ally for a breath of fresh air, showing their soot- 
begrimed faces and half-naked bodies, from which the 
sweat had washed the soot in streaks, I thought they 
were the toughest looking lot of men I ever saw. I 
thought of the vast amount of labor connected with 
pressing the keys as of a typewriter and the wonder¬ 
ful mechanism dropping little brass molds into a line, 
which, filled, was flooded with molten metal and a line 
of type cast, and then the tiny molds released and 
each automatically finding its way into its own 
magazine, to be used over again at the pressure 
of its particular key. I thought of the wonder¬ 
ful saving of time and human labor by the 
use of this complicated machine. It is a truism 
to-day to say that the world’s work is done by ma¬ 
chinery. We marvel at its application in every direc¬ 
tion, even to processes which seem purely mental, like 
the adding and accounting machines. And yet it 
seems sometimes, as we toil on the farm, that we on 
the farm are not getting the same help from the use 
of machinery as are men in other industries. But if 
we will take time to “count our blessings” I am sure 
feet, then dropped the corn to be covered by hand. 
I wonder what farmers would do now if our 100,000- 
000 acre corn crop all had to be planted that way. But 
thanks to the invention of farm machines it is not 
planted that way. When the field is ready to plant 
the farmer drives in with a modern corn drill, and as 
he rides over the field on his light machine plants 
and fertilizes two rows at a time, and makes a mark 
for his return drive. It is not only far quicker and 
easier, but much more accurate in drop and depth of 
planting than hand work can possibly be. Or if the 
corn grower wishes his corn in hills he uses the check 
rower, with which all Western growers are familiar. 
This planter is operated by means of a wire stretched 
across the field along which are knots at regular in¬ 
tervals corresponding to the rows of corn. Every 
time a knot on the check wire passes through the fork 
ALL READY TO START A BUSY DAY’S THRASHING ON AN INDIANA FARM. Fig. 392. 
that operation. The last time I was at the lake I 
watched the same work, but this time a huge hoisting 
machine was lifting the loaded cars from the track, 
dumping their contents into the vessel and placing the 
cars on the track at the rate of 30 cars an hour. 
What a wonderful saving of time and human labor 
by the use of that ponderous machine! 
I remember, too, the first time I was ever in a 
printer’s establishment. There a number of men were 
setting type in the old-fashioned way—one piece of 
type at a time. It seemed like such a slow, laborious 
operation. The last time I was in a publishing house 
I watched the work of the linotype machines, which 
each do the work of several men, so easily, quickly 
and accurately that they seem little less than human. 
I watched the operators of these machines deftly 
we shall be truly thankful for the application of ma¬ 
chinery to farm work. Men are stfll living who 
reaped their grain with a sickle, then came in order 
the cradle, dropper, side-delivery machine, self-binder, 
and now in the West the great harvesters which cut, 
•thrash and sack from 60 to 100 acres of wheat in a 
day. 
How well I remember corn planting time when a 
boy! After the seed bed was prepared the field was 
marked one way with a sled marker; then, if the soil 
was dry, it was cross-marked with a one-horse plow 
going down to moist earth. It was then my job as a 
small boy to drop five kernels of corn at the intersec¬ 
tion, to be covered by men with hoes. I remember the 
first fertilizer we used on the farm; I dropped by 
hand and kicked a little dirt over it with my bare 
on the check head it sets in motion a dropping mech¬ 
anism which drops with surprising regularity a pre¬ 
determined number of kernels. So accurate is the 
new edge drop that, if the seed has been graded as is 
now the custom among the large and successful corn 
growers, the failure to drop the exact number of ker¬ 
nels may be disregarded. 
In the cultivation of the corn an improvement 
almost equally great has been effected. As a boy I 
used the one-horse corn plow, which necessitated going 
across the field twice to cultivate one row. Now in 
the corn belt, the farmer riding through the field, 
seated in a hammock seat with a sunshade over him, 
cultivates two rows with once crossing the field, and 
does the work better than the boy could do it.' Im¬ 
proved implements and a better understanding of the 
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