American Inventions and InventorsMowry, William A. (William Augustus)
History
American Inventions and Inventors
Mowry, William A. (William Augustus)
Inventions
The third day George was again in the field. Once more the grass was
turned. Then in the late afternoon it was prepared for the barn. Tom
could only use the small hand rake, for his work was close to the
fence; he was simply cleaning up what the machines had failed to
reach. But in the field where George had watched the mower and the
tedder, machinery and horse power were again in use. A horse went back
and forth, drawing a horse rake behind him. Now and then, at regular
intervals, up came the rake, a pile of hay was left, and on went the
horse. Then a hay sweep passed along at right angles to the rake and
soon the hay was in piles. As the field was very smooth and free from
stones, a hay loader was used to place the hay upon the wagon. A boy
drove the horses, two men laid the load, and soon the wagon was started
for the barn. The old-fashioned, slow, hard work of lifting the hay by
the forkful into the barn was no longer necessary. Hay forks, run by
horse power, grappled the hay, and lifted the load. Conveyers carried
the hay to the right point and dropped it in the mow.
Such was the work done during the first three days that George spent
on the farm. He saw the old-fashioned hand work and the modern use of
labor-saving machinery. Then he studied his books. In them he found
that the hand labor of cutting, drying, and housing the hay used to
cost about five dollars a ton, and that now, with the best of modern
machines, it need cost not more than one dollar a ton. This machinery
is of great value to the farmer and also to those who buy the hay; for
the farmer can sell his hay at a lower price, since it costs him less
to make it.
This was the last of the haying. For several weeks George watched the
hoes and the harrows, as they kept the gardens and fields in good
condition. Then came harvest-time. Potatoes were first in George's
thoughts, and when he learned that they were to be dug on the morrow
he was thoroughly aroused. But he met with a sore disappointment. The
potatoes were not dug by machinery. The common hoe or the specially
shaped potato hoe were the only tools. Then the back-aching work of
picking up potatoes added to his disgust, and he declared that he never
would raise many potatoes. He learned that plows sometimes help the
hoes, but that potato-digging machines have never come into general
use, though good ones have been invented.
At last grain harvest-time came. This was the time to which George had
long looked forward. Now he could see the wheat cut and threshed. This
he was sure was the best work of the farmer. But when he saw Tom take
the short, crooked sickle, cut some grain with that, gather it in his
arms, and tie a cord around it, he could scarcely control himself. "Is
that the way grain is harvested?" he said. Then when he saw the grain
laid on the barn floor and struck rapidly by flails in the hands of two
men, he declared, "If that is what the farmer has to do to get a little
grain, then I do not want to be a farmer."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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