Farm Mechanics Part 11

As ordinarily made, the land float or clod crusher consists of from five to eight planks, two inches thick and ten or twelve inches wide, spiked together in sawtooth position, the edges of the planks being lapped over each other like clapboards in house siding. The planks are held in place with spikes driven through into the crosspieces.

FARM ROLLER

Farm rollers are used to firm the soil. Sometimes a seed-bed is worked up so thoroughly that the ground is made too loose so the soil is too open and porous. Seeds to germinate require that the soil grains shall fit up closely against them. Good soil is impregnated with soil moisture, or film moisture as it is often called, because the moisture forms in a film around each little soil grain. In properly prepared soil this film moisture comes in contact with the freshly sown seed. If the temperature is right the seed swells and germination starts. The swelling of the seed brings it in contact with more film moisture attached to other grains of soil so the rootlet grows and pushes out into the soil in search of moisture on its own account. A roller is valuable to press the particles of soil together to bring the freshly sown seeds in direct contact with as many particles of soil as possible.

Rolling land is a peculiar operation, the value of which is not always understood. The original idea was to benefit the soil by breaking the lumps. It may be of some benefit on certain soils for this purpose, but the land should always be harrowed after rolling to form a dust mulch to prevent the evaporation of moisture. Land that has been rolled and left overnight shows damp the next morning, which is sufficient proof that moisture is coming to the surface and is being dissipated into the atmosphere. In the so-called humid sections of the country the great problem is to retain moisture. Any farm implement that has a tendency to dissipate soil moisture is a damage to the farmer. Probably nine times out of ten a farm roller is a damage to the crop it is intended to benefit because of the manner in which it is used. It is the abuse, not the proper use of a roller, that injures the crop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 141.--Iron Land Roller Made of Boiler Plate.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 142.--Wooden Land Roller.]

CORN-PLANTER

Corn-planters are designed to plant two rows at once. The width of rows may be adjusted from about 32 to 44 inches apart. When seed-corn is carefully graded to size the dropping mechanism will feed out the grains of corn regularly with very few skips. This is one reason why most farmers plant corn in drills. There are other cultural reasons which do not properly belong to this mechanical article. Hill dropping is considerably more complicated and difficult. After the feeding mechanism has been adjusted to the size of seed kernels to be planted so it will drop four kernels in a hill then the trip chain is tried out to see if it is right at every joint. Dropping in hills is a very careful mechanical proposition. An inch or two out of line either way means a loss of corn in cultivating.

In setting the stakes to go and come by, a careful measurement of the field is necessary in order to get the stake lines on both sides of the field parallel. If the ring stakes are driven accurately on the line, then the first hill of corn must come at the same distance from the line in each row. Likewise in starting back from the far side of the field the first hill should measure exactly the same distance from the stake line as the first hills on the opposite side of the field. This is easily managed by counting the number of trips between the stake line and the first row of corn hills. If the two lines of stakes on the opposite sides of the field are exactly parallel it is not necessary to move either line in order to get the proper distance to start dropping, but it must be adjusted by measurement, otherwise the corn hills will be dodged. If the corn hills are to s.p.a.ce three feet apart then the first row of hills should come nine or twelve feet from the stake line. Stakes may be measured and set a certain number of inches from the line to make the distance come right. This careful adjustment brings the hills in line in the rows.

When the field is level or gently sloping there is no difficulty in making straight rows so far as check rowing is concerned. When the field is hilly another problem crops up. It is almost impossible to run corn rows along the side of a hill and keep them straight. The planter has a tendency to slide downhill. Also the distance across a field is greater where the rows pa.s.s over a hill. To keep the rows straight under such conditions allowance must be made for the stretch over the hill as well as for the side thrust of the planter. Where a chain marker is used it hangs downhill and a further allowance must be made for that. A good driver will skip an inch or so above the mark so that the rows will be planted fairly straight. This means a good deal more in check rowing than when the corn is planted in drills. The greatest objection to hill planting is the crowding of four corn plants into a s.p.a.ce that should be occupied by one plant.

A great many experiments have been tried to scatter the seeds in the hill, so far without definite results, except when considerable additional expense is incurred. However, a cone suspended below the end of the dropping tube usually will scatter the seeds so that no two seeds will touch each other. They may not drop and scatter four or five inches apart, but these little cones will help a good deal. They must be accurately adjusted so the point of the cone will center in the middle of the vertical delivery tube, and there must be plenty of room all around the cone so the corn seed kernels won't stick. The braces that hold the cones in place for the same reason must be turned edge up and supported in such a way as to leave plenty of clearance. The idea is that four kernels of corn drop together. They strike the cone and are scattered in different directions. They naturally fly to the outsides of the drill mark which scatters them as wide apart as the width of the shoe that opens the drill. The advantage of scattering seed grains in the hill has been shown by accurate experiments conducted at different times by agricultural colleges.

GRAIN DRILL

To know exactly how much seed the grain drill is using it is necessary to know how many acres are contained in the field. Most drills have an attachment that is supposed to measure how many acres and fractions of acres the drill covers. Farmers know how much grain each sack contains, so they can estimate as they go along, provided the drill register is correct. It is better to provide a check on the drill indicator. Have the field measured, then drive stakes along one side, indicating one acre, five acres and ten acres. When the one-acre stake is reached the operator can estimate very closely whether the drill is using more or less seed than the indicator registers. When the five-acre stake is reached another proof is available, and so on across the field. Next in importance to the proper working of the drill is straight rows. The only way to avoid gaps is to drive straight. The only way to drive straight is to sight over the wheel that follows the last drill mark. Farmers sometimes like to ride on the grain drill, which places the wheel sighting proposition out of the question. A harrow cart may be hitched behind the wheel of the grain drill, but it gives a side draft. The only way to have straight rows and thorough work is to walk behind the end of the drill. This is the proper way to use a drill, anyway, because a tooth may clog up any minute. Unless the operator is walking behind the drill he is not in position to see quickly whether every tooth is working properly or not. It is hard work to follow a drill all day long, but it pays at harvest time. It costs just as much to raise a crop of grain that only covers part of the ground, and it seems too bad to miss the highest possible percentage to save a little hard work at planting time.

SPECIAL CROP MACHINERY

Special crops require special implements. After they are provided, the equipment must be kept busy in order to make it pay. If a farmer produces five acres of potatoes he needs a potato cutter, a planter, a riding cultivator, a sprayer that works under high pressure, a digger and a sorter. The same outfit will answer for forty acres, which would reduce the per acre cost considerably. No farmer can afford to grow five acres of potatoes without the necessary machinery, because hand labor is out of the question for work of that kind.

On the right kind of soil, and within reach of the right market, potatoes are money-makers. But they must be grown every year because the price of potatoes fluctuates more than any other farm crop. Under the right conditions potatoes grown for five years with proper care and good management are sure to make money. One year out of five will break even, two years will make a little money and the other two years will make big money. At the end of five years, with good business management, the potato machinery will be all paid for, and there will be a substantial profit.

WHEEL HOE

In growing onions and other truck crops, where the rows are too close together for horse cultivation, the wheel hoe is valuable. In fact, it is almost indispensable when such crops are grown extensively. The best wheel hoes have a number of attachments. When the seed-bed has been carefully prepared, and the soil is fine and loose, the wheel hoe may be used as soon as the young plants show above ground. Men who are accustomed to operating a wheel hoe become expert. They can work almost as close to the growing plants with an implement of this kind as they can with an ordinary hand hoe. The wheel hoe, or hand cultivator, works the ground on both sides of the row at once, and it does it quickly, so that very little hand weeding is necessary.

CHAPTER VI

HANDLING THE HAY CROP

REVOLVING HAYRAKE

About the first contrivance for raking hay by horse power consisted of a stick eight or ten feet long with double-end teeth running through it, and pointing in two directions. These rakes were improved from time to time, until they reached perfection for this kind of tool. They have since been superseded by spring-tooth horse rakes, except for certain purposes. For pulling field peas, and some kinds of beans, the old style revolving horse rake is still in use.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 143.--Gra.s.s Hook, for working around borders where the lawn-mower is too clumsy.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 144.--Revolving Hayrake. The center piece is 4" x 6" x 12' long. The teeth are double enders 1-3/8" square and 4' 6" long, which allows 24" of rake tooth clear of the center timber. Every stick in the rake is carefully selected. It is drawn by one horse. If the center teeth stick into the ground either the horse must stop instantly, or the rake must flop over, or there will be a repair job. This invention has never been improved upon for pulling Canada peas.]

Improved revolving horse rakes have a center timber of hardwood about 4 x 6 inches in diameter. The corners are rounded to facilitate sliding over the ground. A rake twelve feet long will have about eighteen double-end teeth. The teeth project about two and one-half feet each way from the center timber. Each tooth is rounded up, sled-runner fas.h.i.+on, at each end so it will point forward and slide along over and close to the ground without catching fast. There is an iron pull rod, or long hook, attached to each end of the center bar by means of a bolt that screws into the center of the end of the wooden center shaft, thus forming a gudgeon pin so the shaft can revolve. Two handles are fastened by band iron straps to rounded recesses or girdles cut around the center bar. These girdles are just far enough apart for a man to walk between and to operate the handles. Wooden, or iron lugs, reach down from the handles with pins projecting from their sides to engage the rake teeth.

Two pins project from the left lug and three from the right. Sometimes notches are made in the lugs instead of pins. Notches are better; they may be rounded up to prevent catching when the rake revolves. As the rake slides along, the driver holds the rake teeth in the proper position by means of the handles. When sufficient load has been gathered he engages the upper notch in the right hand lug, releases the left and raises the other sufficient to point the teeth into the ground. The pull of the horse turns the rake over and the man grasps the teeth again with the handle lugs as before. Unless the driver is careful the teeth may stick in the ground and turn over before he is ready for it. It requires a little experience to use such a rake to advantage. No better or cheaper way has ever been invented for harvesting Canada peas. The only objections are that it sh.e.l.ls some of the riper pods and it gathers up a certain amount of earth with the vines which makes dusty thres.h.i.+ng.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 145.--Buck Rake. When hay is stacked in the field a four-horse buck rake is the quickest way to bring the hay to the stack. The buck rake shown is 16 feet wide and the 2 x 4 teeth are 11 feet long. Two horses are hitched to each end and two drivers stand on the ends of the buck rake to operate it. The load is pushed under the horse fork, the horses are swung outward and the buck rake is dragged backward.]

HAY-TEDDER

The hay-tedder is an English invention, which has been adopted by farmers in rainy sections of the United States. It is an energetic kicker that scatters the hay swaths and drops the hay loosely to dry between showers. Hay may be made quickly by starting the tedder an hour behind the mowing machine.

It is quite possible to cut timothy hay in the morning and put it in the mow in the afternoon, by shaking it up thoroughly once or twice with the hay-tedder. When clover is mixed with the timothy, it is necessary to leave it in the field until the next day, but the time between cutting and mowing is shortened materially by the use of the tedder.

Gra.s.s cut for hay may be kicked apart in the field early during the wilting process without shattering the leaves. If left too long, then the hay-tedder is a damage because it kicks the leaves loose from the stems and the most valuable feeding material is wasted. But it is a good implement if rightly used. In catchy weather it often means the difference between bright, valuable hay and black, musty stuff, that is hardly fit to feed.

Hay-tedders are expensive. Where two farmers neighbor together the expense may be shared, because the tedder does its work in two or three hours' time. Careful farmers do not cut down much gra.s.s at one time. The tedder scatters two mowing swaths at once. In fact the mowing machine, hay-tedder and horserake should all fit together for team work so they will follow each other without skips or unnecessary laps. The dividing board of the mowing-machine marks a path for one of the horses to follow and it is difficult to keep him out of it. But two horses pulling a hay-tedder will straddle the open strip between the swaths when the tedder is twice the width of the cut.

HAY SKIDS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 146.--Hay Skid. This hay skid is 8 feet wide and 16 feet long. It is made of 7/8" lumber put together with 2" carriage bolts--plenty of them. The round boltheads are countersunk into the bottom of the skid and the nuts are drawn down tight on the cleats. It makes a low-down, easy-pitching, hay-hauling device.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 147.--Hay Sling. It takes no longer to hoist 500 pounds of hay than 100 pounds if the rig is large and strong enough.

Four feet wide by ten feet in length is about right for handling hay quickly. But the toggle must reach to the ends of the rack if used on a wagon.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 148.--(1) Four-Tined Derrick Fork. (2) Pea Guard.

An extension guard to lift pea-vines high enough for the sickle is the cleanest way to harvest Canada peas. The old-fas.h.i.+oned way of pulling peas with a dull scythe has gone into oblivion. But the heavy bearing varieties still persist in crawling on the ground. If the vines are lifted and cut clean they can be raked into windrows with a spring tooth hayrake. (3) Haystack Knife. This style of hay-cutting knife is used almost universally on stacks and in hay-mows. There is less use for hay-knives since farmers adopted power hayforks to lift hay out of a mow as well as to put it in.]

Hay slips, or hay skids, are used on the old smooth fields in the eastern states. They are usually made of seven-eighths-inch boards dressed preferably on one side only. They are used smooth side to the ground to slip along easily. Rough side is up to better hold the hay from slipping. The long runner boards are held together by cross pieces made of inch boards twelve inches wide and well nailed at each intersection with nails well clinched. Small carriage bolts are better than nails but the heads should be countersunk into the bottom with the points up. They should be used without washers and the ends of the bolts cut close to the sunken nuts. The front end of the skid is rounded up slightly, sled runner fas.h.i.+on, as much as the boards will bear, to avoid digging into the sod to destroy either the gra.s.s roots or crowns of the plants. Hay usually is forked by hand from the windrows on to the skids. Sometimes hay slings are placed on the skids and the hay is forked on to the slings carefully in layers lapped over each other in such a way as to hoist on to the stack without spilling out at the sides. Four hundred to eight hundred pounds makes a good load for one of these skids, according to horse power and unevenness of the ground.

They save labor, as compared to wagons, because there is no pitching up.

All hoisting is supposed to be done by horse power with the aid of a hay derrick.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 149.--Double Harpoon Hayfork. This is a large size fork with extra long legs. For handling long hay that hangs together well this fork is a great success. It may be handled as quickly as a smaller fork and it carries a heavy load.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 150.--Six-Tined Grapple Hayfork. It is balanced to hang as shown in the drawing when empty. It sinks into the hay easily and dumps quickly when the clutch is released.]

WESTERN HAY DERRICKS

Two derricks for stacking hay, that are used extensively in the alfalfa districts of Idaho, are shown in the ill.u.s.tration, Figure 151. The derrick to the left is made with a square base of timbers which supports an upright mast and a horizontal boom. The timber base is sixteen feet square, made of five sticks of timber, each piece being 8 x 8 inches square by 16 feet in length. Two of the timbers rest flat on the ground and are rounded up at the ends to facilitate moving the derrick across the stubble ground or along the road to the next hayfield. These sleigh runner timbers are notched on the upper side near each end and at the middle to receive the three cross timbers. The cross timbers also are notched or recessed about a half inch deep to make a sort of double mortise. The timbers are bound together at the intersections by iron U-clamps that pa.s.s around both timbers and fasten through a flat iron plate on top of the upper timbers. These flat plates or bars have holes near the ends and the threaded ends of the U-irons pa.s.s through these holes and the nuts are screwed down tight. The sleigh runner timbers are recessed diagonally across the bottom to fit the round U-irons which are let into the bottoms of the timbers just enough to prevent sc.r.a.ping the earth when the derrick is being moved.

These iron U-clamp fasteners are much stronger and better than bolts through the timbers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 151.--Idaho Hay Derricks. Two styles of hay derricks are used to stack alfalfa hay in Idaho. The drawing to the left shows the one most in use because it is easier made and easier to move.

The derrick to the right usually is made larger and more powerful. Wire cable is generally used with both derricks because rope wears out quickly. They are similar in operation but different in construction.