USA > Indiana > Marshall County > History of Indiana : containing a history of Indiana and biographical sketches of governors and other leading men. Also a statement of the growth and prosperity of Marshall County, together with a personal and family histry of many of its citizens, Vol. II > Part 9
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The sheaves were thrown on the front part of the machine, while in motion, by men, boys and sometimes women, stationed around the track. When the machine first started in a field it was easy enough to keep it supplied with wheat, but when it came to bringing it in from the " four corners" it was a different thing, and the men, women, children and teams all had to "get a hus- tle " on them, and the machine would often have to be stopped while the wheat would be brought nearer the track. To this, the
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horses never objected, as this manner of threshing was a real horse-killing process.
The grain was carried down into a box between the hind wheels and on its way there it was subjected to a fanning mill process, which was a great improvement on the first manner heretofore described. The " grain box," as it was called, held eight bushels of wheat and whenever it was full the machine was stopped and the box emptied. The straw was commonly burnt off of the track to "get it out of the way." Two hundred bushels was a good day's threshing and more than was com- monly done. The machine cost about $250. Like nearly all the implements so far described in this chapter, these old "traveling threshing machines" are extinct; but, if some specu- lative genius had one intact and would keep it properly "blanketed" and concealed and charge ten cents admission, he would have a "bigger" and better paying "show" than old " Jumbo " ever was.
Next came the stationary thresher, which was only a " huller," as it had no separator nor vibrator, and the straw was taken from the " dump" of the machine by hand labor, and after the two men who did this work had been engaged in it for an hour their most intimate friends and acquaintances would not have recog- nized them after the most critical inspection, so dusted and smutted were they.
In a few years these crude " hullers " were superseded by the " separator," whose inner gear had a vibrating motion, the under part of which was a screen work through which the grain passed after being separated from the straw, and then " down and out" of the machine after having also passed through the "cleaning" process of a "fanning mill" that constituted a portion of said inner gear of the machine. Here we will leave the threshers until later on in this chapter, when an attempt will be made to contrast the efficiency of the implements of the early days in Marshall county with those of to-day-the then and now of our history.
In the sowing, harvesting and threshing of the smaller grains we have apparently lost sight of the planting, "tending" and gathering of the corn crop, but the writer could no more forget this staple product than he could one of his nearest friends in time of need, for on this he and his early associates in this county, subsisted mainly for many years.
For this crop the ground was prepared much the same as for a wheat crop, and when too rough to be marked out by a shovel plow it was planted by stakes, and when it was up, then the fight began and the strife was, which should have the supremacy, the weeds and sprouts or the corn, and as to how this contest came out, it depended upon the sand and brawn of the proprietor of
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the " ranch." Then game was plenty and those who liked hunting better than work, would often fool their time away in the crop season and then come and borrow or beg from their more industrious neighbors, before the winter was over.
For several years after the first settlement of the county, each farmer "tended " his crop with his "best ox," the old heavy hoe ever being called into requisition to give the "finishing touch." The crop was gathered then as now by hand and the oxen, hitched to an old Pennsylvania wagon, were muzzled to keep them from foundering themselves and eating up the crop. The corn when gathered was commonly thrown into rail pens and sometimes in log cribs that were usually a part of a log barn.
Corn-shellers were not used in this county until as late as 1855 or 1856, and in the olden time when we wanted to "go to mill," a large, strong quilt was commonly spread on the "puncheon floor in front of the fire-place and the desired amount of corn was piled in the middle, and around this pile and just on the edge of the quilt, sat the members of the family shelling by hand until the whole grist was ready to be taken to the mill.
For many years after the organization and settlement of the county, flax was raised in considerable quantities and manufac- tured into linen, out of which our shirts and trousers were made. The ground was prepared about the same as for oats, and the cleaner the field was of weeds and sprouts the better. The flax, when in condition, was pulled and taken care of until the proper time when it was spread on the ground to "rot" or bleach. It was then gathered up and while very dry, "broke " on a " break- ing horse " or "flax-break," which was a wooden bench about two and a half feet high with four sharp rails or slats set up edge- wise and about two and a half or three inches apart. Above these four were three like slats that were fastened in together and arranged to mash in between the lower rails. These last, or three slats, were so arranged that they were raised up and down with the right hand of the operator on the machine, who took large handfuls of the dry and bleached flax and placing it cross- wise on the brake would triphammer it until but little was left except the film that covered the original stem. In this condition the "broke flax" was taken and "scutched" over the end of a wide, thin and hard board with a " scutching knife," which was a wooden knife about thirty inches long and two and a half inches wide and made of the best of hard timber. By this operation the woody or chaff-like part of the stem was separated from the fiber of the plant. The flax was then drawn over and through a " hackle " or hatchel, which consisted of a board about eight by twenty inches in size, in the middle of which were arragned probably over 100 sharp steel teeth, about as long as a common ten-penny nail, but much more slender. Through this
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machine (if it deserves the cognomen) the hatcheled flax was drawn until the film or fiber was nearly as fine as silk. The tow that was hatcheled from the dressed flax was, a portion of it, spun into thread for "filling" in the coarser linen, and the flax proper was spun into finer thread for chain and for the filling also of the finer linens manufactured. The flax was spun on a little spinning wheel that was turned by a treadle, the operator sitting down and working the treadle with the foot. The flax was loosely looped around and on a " distaff" which was commonly made, in this county, of the center part or stem of a dog-wood bush, of one year's growth, which most always had four branches at equal dis- tance apart around the main stem of the bush. These branches were cut off at about ten inches in length and were all tied to- gether at the top around the main branch, and when this was cov- ered with the flax it looked very much like a hornet's nest. Enough of the lower part of the main branch was left to make a staff of, and that was fastened in the bench of the wheel, at a convenient height to be reached by the spinner. The "fliers " and the spool on which the thread was twisted and wound was run by two bands made of cord. On this kind of wheel was spun the thread out of which was made our "linen breeches" and shirts of half a century ago, the fabric being woven on an old hand loom which we will not attempt to describe here, nor will we attempt to de- scribe the "reeling" and "warping" of the thread, as it would be too tedious for this work, but we will simply say that the whole process was in keeping with that of the spinning.
No one can fully comprehend or appreciate the changes made in the appearance of the county, nor the difference in the imple- ments used fifty years ago and now, unless he was one of the very earliest settlers of the county. Where dense forests then stood there is not even a stump to be seen now. Instead of the " jump- ing shovel" plow and the unwieldy "breaking plow," with the long line of oxen hitched to it, we have the neat chilled or cast- steel plow, or even the " riding plow," on which the farm hand can comfortably ride all the day instead of having his arms al- most torn from his shoulders and his legs almost broken with flying roots. Instead of the vexatious and unruly ox team the farmer has his well bred and broke team of horses, using two or three of them as he may choose, to make the work easy and to plow the ground any desired depth. Instead of the old fashioned " A harrow," we have the efficient and neat "spring-tooth " har- row that thoroughly stirs and levels the ground, preparing it as nicely as a garden for the sowing of the seed which is not done any more by hand, but by drills of various makes and designs, there being, however, but two kinds of drills so far as the princi- ple is concerned, the hose drills and the roller dill. Of those made on the former principle there are many makes, each maker
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claiming for his implement superiority over anything of the kind ever manufactured. Of the "roller drills" the writer has never seen but one make. The superiority claimed for this drill is that the grain is deposited in thoroughly rolled or pulverized ground. Any of these machines are a vast improvement on the old way of swinging half a bushel of wheat, in a two bushel sack, over your shoulder and starting on an eighty rod " round " or " bout," sowing the seed broadcast as you went along, keeping your eye on the stake at the farther or opposite side of the field, for, if the sower got out of line the wheat field would be " spotted," some places the seed being too thick and others there being none; and the difference between tramping all day over the plowed ground with a heavy weight on your shoulders and riding as comfortably as if you were in a road sulky, is a consideration that is not for- gotten by those who have tried both methods of "sowing the seed."
The old fashioned sickle is entirely ignored and the grain- cradle is only used in more recently cleared ground where there are too many stumps to run a reaper with profit, and without danger of breaking it, but probably nine-tenths of the crops of the small grains in the county are now cut by self-binders, which relieves the farm laborer from the terribly hot, unpleasant and exhausting task of binding the harvest by hand; and, with the aid of one of these self-binders and team, two hands will cut and shock up as much grain in one day as they could put up in a whole week by the old methods.
Now-a-days the crops of small grain are either "mowed away" in capacious barns or stacked in convenient position to be run through the separator, after the crop has "gone through with the sweat." These separators are in strange contrast with the "flail," the horse-tramping process, the old "traveling threshing machine" and the " huller," the last of which was run by "horse- power," and has been seen by most of the citizens of the county who are living to-day and who have paid any attention to agri- culture. The older threshers were hauled over the country and run by horse-power, but the separator of to-day is drawn over the country and run by a "traction engine" that under the hand of an intelligent engineer, travels over our thoroughfares haul- ing its burdens, puffing, blowing and screaming, as if it were a real, live monster of the animal kingdom, who by some freak had resolved to donate his power to the good of the human kind, " so called." Had one of these engines, with the modern separator attached, dropped suddenly down among us, even thirty-five years ago, and been found on one of our highways wending its way to some large farm to do a job of threshing, the inhabitants hereabouts would have thought that either the mil- lennium, or his satanic majesty, had come. Truly it has been
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vouchsafed to those who have lived the last fifty years, especially in our wild and rude but progressive country, to see more im- provements, more inventions and more discoveries, for the benefit of our kind, than has ever been made and recorded in any two centuries that have preceded us in the world's progress, and no other calling in life has received greater benefits from the invent- ive genius of our country than has the vocation of agriculture, for were it not for these labor saving and time-saving machines our farmers could neither sow, harvest or thresh the crops they now raise on their extensive farms.
The ground for the corn crop is now plowed with the latest improved plow of a pattern that suits the fancy or prejudice of the respective farmer. It is dragged with the modern spring- tooth harrow, and in case the ground gets beaten down with heavy rains, it is livened up with the cultivator. It is then marked off one way with a "marker," and then planted with a corn- planter, by going crosswise over the furrows made by the marker. With one of these planters, two hands and a team can plant fif- teen acres in one day. This not only facilitates the operation of planting but puts the crop in in much better and more regular manner than when done by the old method of dropping by hand and covering with a hoe, and consequently the crop is much more easily tended than when the hills stand in an irregular or zig-zag shape in the rows. The crop is now commonly tended with a walk- ing or riding corn plow that plows both sides of the corn at the same time, instead of the old method of plowing one side of the row at a time with the single shovel plow, and later on with the double shovel.
As stated previously in this chapter, corn is now gathered as it always has been, by hand, the farmers now using horse teams instead of oxen. The crop is now universally shelled with corn- shellers of various patterns, sizes and capacities and they are run by hand, horse and steam power, and the greater portion of the crop is shelled before it is taken to market now-a-days.
The kinds of produce or crops raised in this county in the ear- lier days of its history and organization was corn, wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, beans, and a few other minor kinds of produce such as cabbage, turnips and rutabagas, which were used for cu- linary purposes and also for food for stock but not for market, for there was no market for them. These crops grow abundantly here.
The corn crop would run from twenty-five to fifty bushels to the acre, owing to the condition and kind of ground, the manner of tending it and the favorableness of the season. The average on the wheat crop would be a difficult thing to even approximate, the farmer sometimes getting not much more than his "seed back," and again, on ground in good condition (for those days),
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and a favorable season, he would get from fifteen to eighteen bushels per acre. Oats has never been raised in the county for a paying crop, for our soil and the average seasons are not adapted to its culture, and some seasons it is almost an entire failure, and others the yield is from forty to fifty bushels per acre, but the latter turn out is very unusual and the season has to be extraordinary indeed. This crop was usually sowed to make feed for the horses after the corn crop of the previous season had been exhausted, and before the new crop came on, and the rule was to sow the ground to wheat in the fall. Rye was also raised almost entirely for feed and pasture and was scarcely ever threshed, being fed out in the sheaf, and as the writer never saw five acres of it threshed as far back as forty years ago from this date, 1890, he could make no reliable estimate of the average crop in those days, but, like oats, it was not raised for market purposes until later years, and the average now is about fifteen bushels to the acre. Potatoes, years ago, gave not only a bigger yield but a better quality of the crop than is now raised. The seasons appeared to be more favorable to their growth, and the new sandy loam produced the soundest, sweetest and "mealiest" potatoes that were ever dug from the earth, and we will undoubt- edly never see their equal again raised in this or any other county or country. In those days there were no "potato bugs" to de- vour the vines as soon as they are out of the ground, nor grubs to bore, eat and destroy the roots as there is to-day, and the idea of saturating the vines with a solution of poisonous Paris green, would have been entertained with "holy horror" by our fathers. Beans were little grown for market. The yield was good if the season was favorable, but the crop was often injured by rains between the time of "pulling" and threshing. The threshing was commonly done with the flail in the manner already de- scribed for threshing wheat. Never having seen nor heard of an acre of beans being raised and threshed in this county we would not attempt to make a reliable estimate of the crop. Our soil is commonly too rich to raise beans upon.
Clover was not raised to any extent for many years after the settling and clearing up of a large portion of our county, in fact, not until the farmers began to discover that their land had been over-drawn upon by a bad rotation and rapid succession of crops and that it needed rest and recuperation. Since its general in- troduction, which was about thirty years ago, it has been largely and extensively grown for hay-its seed for market and as a restorer of the lost crop-giving properties of the over-run lands. Our farmers would not know how to get along now without this valuable crop and great fertilizer and invigorator.
Timothy hay has been quite generally grown for over thirty years, and its acreage is being greatly increased yearly as our
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farmers are draining and reclaiming their low, rich lands that are admirably adapted to the growth of this, the best grass that grows, for hay. These rich lands often produce from two and a half to three tons of hay to the acre, and are the most valuable lands, when so reclaimed, that is owned by the farmers of the county, as it produces most abundantly and will probably never need rest or enriching.
As to the best methods of cultivating the leading grains and other products of the county the compiler of this chapter can- not do better for the farm readers of, and patrons of, this volume than to adopt and endorse the following address by John Q. A. Seig, delivered before the state board of agriculture of the state of Indiana for the year 1888, as it contains many practical sug- gestions which if adopted and enlarged upon, as they will be by the intelligent farmer, will be of great benefit to the agricultural interests of the county.
Under the caption of "How Can the Soil be Most Profitably Cultivated?" Mr. Seig says:
"This is a question as old as agriculture itself. Men have been working at this problem ever since the creation of man, and yet they differ as much in opinion now as they did when Cain and Abel were the only leaders in agriculture. Then one thought the raising of cereals and fruit was the thing to do, the other thought stock-raising was best, hence they divided, and murder followed on account of jealousy and difference of opinion as to the best mode of farming. Now, if two men living in the same locality, with the same market, could not agree as to the best mode of farming, how can we expect the millions of farmers of to-day, living under such a variety of circumstances and in so many different localities to agree? This is a question every farmer in his own locality will have to determine for himself. But there are some general principles underlying this problem that hold good in every locality, and unless some attention is given to these general features the farmer will in a few years fail to farm profitably. One of the greatest of these general principles is the retention of the fertility of the soil; this is the crowning idea of successful farming. The banker who is con- tinually drawing on his principal soon finds his doors closed; and if when he draws on his principal he puts it into merchandise or speculation he soon finds whatever he has left, if he has any- thing, transferred into other ·channels, and his bank a thing of the past. So it is with farming, it does not matter where situated or what is grown upon the farm, if by the mode pursued there is a constant drain upon the soil and nothing replaced, it is only a question of time, and usually a very short time, when such a farmer will be farming without profit. Therefore the true idea is, as with the bank, to so manage as to keep the principal invio-
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late, and then if there is a surplus to put it where it will do the most good. Now how to do this is not a question that can be solved by the exercise of the muscle or manual labor; but it is a question for thought and deep consideration; for the man that fails to think in this day and age of the world, on the farm, is lost in the fog; his farm soon passes into other and more intelli- gent hands and he becomes a day laborer, and frequently an ob- ject of charity; for a man who has inherited a farm and fails is the most pitiable of all failures, he being entirely unsuited for any of the other avocations of life. Therefore, this proposition in every locality holds good, that in order to farm profitably the fer- tility of the soil must be retained; even better, that it should be increased. To do this we will have to look elsewhere than to barn-yard manures, for no farmer can begin to make enough of this best of all fertilizers to supply the drain on his soil caused by the constant growing of crops. Farmers used to think that fallowing and cropping alternate years was the thing to do, but to-day all posted farmers know that if there never had been a fallow in the state of Indiana the farms would be more produc- tive, and that nothing so injures the soil as laying bare without any protection from the heat of the sun in the months of July and August. This being the case, there should be such a rota- tion of crops adopted as to insure shade and protection to the soil during the heated part of the season; say the following ro- tation: Clover- I begin with clover, because I think any rota- tion without clover a failure. I turn under in September or Oc- tober and plant to corn in spring. The reasons I would turn under in these months are: You put under plenty of seed for future seeding, and you also get rid of the cutworm in the spring, which is frequently worth a good deal in a single crop. Let your corn get pretty well matured. By this means you get much better corn and better fodder. Then cut it up. If your corn has been well cultivated, cut one way with a Stoddard's harrow, cross with a good steel-tooth harrow, then drill in one and one-half bushels of wheat, with 200 pounds of phosphate or bone meal - which ever does the best on your land - to the acre. By manag- ing this way you will find in the spring that you have a better stand of clover, and it will stand the summer drouth better than if seeded by hand in the spring, and without any extra expense. Mow or pasture first year. Better mow. Let grow second year and turn under as before for corn, and so on. The farmer that will follow up this plan will not only retain the fertility of his soil, but he will find that land that brought ten bushels of wheat and twenty bushels of corn to the acre will in a few years pro- duce thirty bushels of wheat and fifty bushels of corn to the acre. You also by this mode keep your land at good, profitable work, and not wasting its energies in the production of weeds,
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which are more injurious to the soil than the cultivatian and growing of crops. In planting and sowing it is very necessary to have and use the best and most vigorous seeds. No one has any idea how much is lost to the farmers each year by using imper- fect and weakly seed. It can only be guessed at by comparing it with the loss sustained by the breeding of poorly fed, feeble and ill-formed animals. Therefore, the second great principle in suc- cessful farming is to produce the best of its kind of everything you raise. If your farm is not rich enough in plant food to pro- duce the very best of grain or produce, feed it until it will pro- duce the best. It will not be money thrown away. It will be depositing it where cashiers can not run away with it, nor where you will have to take a mortgage to secure the payment of it, but it will be there subject to come forth at your intelligent command. "The soil, in order to respond profitably, must be thoroughly, systematically and economically cultivated. A good warm mel- low seed bed is just as necessary as a fertile soil, for the remun- erative production of a crop. It never has, nor never will pay to plant seed among the clods to be starved in the start. For, like everything else, the young plant needs to be nursed and fed with the choicest of plant food when it is young. Therefore it is nec- essary to so pulverize the soil as to make it light and compact. Shut out the cold winds, for plants suffer more from cold feet than most any other one thing, and put in such a condition as to furnish plenty of food from the start. For plants, like animals, if well fed, suffer but little from the cold. Now how to do this, and do it economically, is that to which the average farmer gives too little attention. While his hands are busy, his mind is not working out the economic problem. He plows without thinking until the field is plowed. Then, when the hands are done, the mind says you must plant, but the soil has become so dry and cloddy that there is not sufficient fine soil with which to cover the grain. Then the mind says to him, you must pulverize. He sends one hand with a team and roller; he goes with another team and harrow bumping and thumping all day over the clods, and at night, all the way he can tell that he has been doing anything is by the jaded condition of his team and by the feeling that he has, tired and sore, that he has been stumbling over clods the livelong day to no purpose or advantage. Now, the mind should have worked in the first place as well as the hands. It should have told him that at night they should have rolled and harrowed all the soil that had been plowed during the day. To have man- aged economically he should had his harrow and roller in the field ready, the harrow hitched or fastened behind the roller. Then, at the proper time, he should have hitched both teams to the roller, mounted his hand and let him do the work of both, while he went and gave such attention to things about the house
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