This manuscript will not only be for some of my recollections of the last two decades of the nineteenth century, but will also include some observations and comment of my own.
During the last century, from 1872 to 1972 we have advanced in our farming methods from the "reap hook" to the grain cradle, then to the old "drop reaper" thence to the grain binder and from there to the present day Combine which harvests our grain crops, threshes it and delivers it in bags ready to be hauled to the roller mills. Our first machines for harvesting grain were pulled by horse and mule power. Today they are pulled by gas and diesel tractors of many horse power. And right here I will make the prediction that before another Century passes that some inventor will come up with a machine that will harvest the wheat, grind it into flour, add self rising ingredients, pack it in five, ten, and twenty five pound packages ready for the self service grocery store thus doing away with our present day flour mills. (Of course these machines will be used in the western wheat states, not here in our hills of Tennessee).
Early in my boyhood, some congressman sent my father a package, some four or five pounds of seed wheat. It was a new variety of bearded wheat called "Fulcaster." My father prepared a plot of ground, manured it good and heavy and sowed the sample sent him by the congressman. The, wheat came up and produced a fine crop. Us boys offered to harvest it with the grain cradle, but NO, he wanted to save every grain of it, so he sharpened up his old reap hook and harvested it himself and stored it in the dry. After it was thoroughly dry he wouldn't even have it run through the threshing machine for fear of getting it mixed with other varieties of wheat, so he threshed it with a "flail" and cleaned it with his fan mill.
I do not remember just how much wheat the sample package, produced, but it produced enough to seed some four or more acres and produced more than we wanted to sow the next year, so he sold the rest of it to his neighbors and it was not long after that until every one who liked bearded wheat was sowing Fulcaster wheat. But at that time all small grain was harvested with a grain cradle and bound in bundles by hand, and some farmers were scared to death at those old vicious looking beards sticking out of every head, and would not plant at all. I heard one farmer say that he would not bind bearded wheat for $50-00 a day.
Now, if there is any one living today who remembers the old time horse power threshing machines I would like to know who you are, how old you are, and if you know what year the first steam engine was used to operate a threshing machine.
I wil I now try to describe an old time horse power as briefly as I can. It consisted of a conglomeration of cog wheels mounted in the center of a frame built something -like a wagon with front and rear axles and transport wheels. In the center, and over the mass of cog wheels was a platform, about six or seven feet square for the driver to stand on. It had four leavers or "sweeps" about ten or twelve feet long to each of which was hitched a team of horses or mules (eight head in all). The power to operate the machine was transmitted by what was known as a "tumbling rod." This tumbling rod was a round iron shaft about two inches in diameter and was equipped with what is now known as a "universal" joint. The tumbling rod was made of two parts or joints. The first part reached to the outside of the circle traveled by the four teams of horses and or mules. Just outside the circle traveled by the teams, the first joint was supported by a heavy bearing or collar which was placed on the ground to hold it up an inch or two off the ground. Then the universal joint, and second joint of the tumbling rod passed on to the machine which was equipped with a beveled cog wheel instead of a pully. The second joint of the tumbling rod was fitted with a larger beveled cog wheel which meshed in with the smaller cog wheel on the end of the cylinder shaft. Now when we get all four of the wheels of the horse power dug into the ground deep enough to hold it steady, and the machine set beside a stack of wheat and the eight horses and mules hitched to the four sweeps of the horse power and the driver mounts the platform with his whip, we are ready to thresh. The driver of the teams was, equipped with a whip with a long hickory handle and long lash with a "popper" on the end of the lash, If he was an expert driver he could make that "popper" crack like a rifle gun. The whip was long enough that he could easily reach the outside horse as well as the inside horse, and woe be to the animal who tried to shirk his part of the load. He first got a warning crack about a foot over his back, and if he didn't heed the warning, he next got a stinging blow from the whip wither on his hip or his back just above the root of his tail. The teams were driven at a good steady walk which would furnish plenty of speed to operate the machine. The thresher was equipped with a "straw carrier" which would be folded back over the top of the machine when transported from one job to the next. With this model, it required three men on the straw stack. This model was later out moded and the new models were equipped with a blower which if managed right, would do a very good job of stacking and save the labor of stacking by hand.
These old models run by horse power, with all those cog wheel and gears grinding together would create the awfulest noise ever heard. On a still day they could be heard a distance of four or five miles.
I do not know the exact date that the horse power was replaced by steam power, but it must have been about 1890 (give or take a year or so).- It is my recollection that George Wall, a resident of Parrottsville bought the first steam engine that was ever operated in that neighborhood. Later, L.S. Balch (Uncle Vanny) bought a new six H.P. steam engine. I think it was made by the Russel Co. of Massillon, Ohio. Some one else bought a new Russel threshing machine, and they went in partners threshing grain. One day there was something went wrong with the engine, and of course at the time there was no one around who had any previous experience with a steam engine, and it was hard to locate the trouble. Finally, some one spoke and said to Mr. Balch, "Uncle Vanny take it home. and fire it up and it will make a good dinner horn." Uncle Vanny turned around and said, "Who ever heard of a seven hundred dollar dinner horn?"
But these old relics have almost passed away. The steam engine for good and almost all the old threshers are well on the way to oblivion. The U.S. Government is paying the farmers to not raise wheat, and what, farmers are left on the farms are using their oats for hay, and the rest of the farmers have taken jobs in the factories in pursuit of the once "Almighty Dollar." But the dollar too? has been decreasing in value for many years and its value may finally vanish, and what we will use for money after that I do not know.
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