Farm Tools And Machines
Categories:
MISCELLANEOUS
The drudgery of farm life is being lessened from year to year by the
invention or improvement of farm tools and machines. Perhaps some of you
know how tiresome was the old up-and-down churn dasher that has now
generally given place to the "quick-coming" churns. The toothed,
horse-drawn cultivator has nearly displaced "the man with the hoe,"
while the scythe, slow and back-breaking, is everywhere getting out of
the way
f the mowing-machine and the horserake. The old heavy,
sweat-drawing grain-cradle is slinking into the backwoods, and in its
place we have the horse-drawn or steam-drawn harvester that cuts and
binds the grain, and even threshes and measures it at one operation.
Instead of the plowman's wearily making one furrow at a time, the
gang-plows of the plains cut many furrows at one time, and instead of
walking the plowman rides. The shredder and husker turns the hitherto
useless cornstalk into food, and at the same time husks, or shucks, the
corn.
The farmer of the future must know three things well: first, what
machines he can profitably use; second, how to manage these machines;
third, how to care for these machines.
The machinery that makes farming so much more economical and that makes
the farmer's life so much easier and more comfortable is too complicated
to be put into the hands of bunglers who will soon destroy it, and it is
too costly to be left in the fields or under trees to rust and rot.
If it is not convenient for every farmer to have a separate tool-house,
he should at least set apart a room in his barn, or a shed for storing
his tools and machines. As soon as a plow, harrow, cultivator--indeed
any tool or machine--has finished its share of work for the season, it
should receive whatever attention it needs to prevent rusting, and
should be carefully housed.
Such care, which is neither costly nor burdensome, will add many years
to the life of a machine.