One other machine which has been greatly improved is the clover huller. Previous to its invention, most of the clover seed was sown in the chaff, and when clean seed was required it took several days’ work with four horses to tramp out three or four bushels, and then much of the seed was left in the chaff.
The modern huller is equipped with the blower and self-feeder, and with it from twenty to fifty bushels can be hulled and cleaned in a day, the amount depending on how well filled the heads are with seed.
It is quite recently that machinery has been invented that relieves the farmer of the hard work of planting potatoes by hand, and at the same time does the work better than the old way, as the machine drops the seed at a uniform distance apart and covers it perfectly. A man with this machine will do the work of eight or ten men dropping by hand. Several potato diggers, operated by horse power, have also come into recent use. They greatly lighten and accelerate the work, and the cost of growing potatoes has been reduced several cents a bushel by these inventions.
III. IMPROVEMENT OF STOCK.
Perhaps it would be well in beginning to write on this subject to ask, what is “pedigreed stock”? Many people have the idea that pedigreeing is an arbitrary rule adopted by stock growers to mystify the buyer and secure larger prices for their stock. The fact is that it is intended as a protection to the purchaser, and is, or should be, a guarantee that the stock has been bred along certain lines for a sufficient period to establish the desirable qualities which it is wished to perpetuate. A rigid censorship is exercised over the record books, and it makes every one recording stock, in a certain sense, a detective to see that the records are truthful and represent the animals just as they are.
It is doubtful if along any line of farm operations there has been greater improvement than in the breeding and care of stock; yet there were greater difficulties to overcome in doing this than in improving the implements. These difficulties may be classed as follows: First, the one already alluded to in the opening chapter, to wit, the expense of importing and the consequent high price of thoroughbred animals; and when we recall that this was at a time when the farmers were hewing out their homes from the forest, and could not obtain large prices for their products, it will be seen that few farmers could afford to improve their stock. Second, as to cattle and hogs, it was almost impossible to breed pure stock; for all animals were allowed to run at large, and the woods were full of “tramp males,” which would break through the fences and invade the fields where the improved stock was kept. Third, those engaged in breeding stock found that there was a limit which when reached brought barrenness to high-bred animals, and in many other cases reduced the vitality so as to invite disease. That this evil was a real and serious one is shown from the fact that large numbers of high-priced animals failed to produce young among cattle, and that many herds of pedigreed swine were carried off by epidemic diseases. Fourth, and perhaps the most serious hindrance to improvement, was the indifference of farmers and the want of appreciation of good stock, and of course the farmer who did not want it would not coöperate in producing it.
The difference between the improvement of implements and stock consisted largely in the fact that trained mechanics were responsible for the former, and they would perfect the implements until the farmers could not afford to do without them; while the slipshod farmer would be satisfied with his common stock, and would fail to accept the help of the men who were trying to improve it. Another thing which farmers learned slowly was that good stock requires good care, which not only means shelter and liberal feeding, but also that the food be adapted to the wants of the animal. More fine animals were ruined by over-feeding with corn—a heating and fattening diet—than by insufficient food and exposure to cold and storm. It took many years to teach the farmer what a balanced ration was, and why it was necessary.
MODERN CLOVER HULLER.
Showing Uncle Tom’s Stacker and Self-Feeder.