We thought we would post something a little different this post… As you all know I grew up in farm country and own old tractors and plows and do our own acre garden. My ancestors were all farmers… probably yours were too. We have collies who are definitely a herding, working farm dog and I thought today we would post a blast from the past of the world my father lived in, and I saw some of… the old family horse farm or farm from that era. I find it fascinating to see these old animals, machines and such working and while I like seeing horses working on the farm I am a tractor guy myself. While my grandfather had the largest horse farm in our state when I was a kid I find tractors eat less and I don’t have to go around scooping up after old Allis, Molly or Annie. 🙂 So, let go back in time and see how farming used to be done on the family farm….
We will start out with a collie herding and then end with a collie herding sheep… hope you find it interesting…
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The reaper was a huge step forward on the farm….. all you had to do was go behind it and tie up the shocks! No hand cutting…… whew!
But, then came the binder/reaper… now it bound the shocks for you!!! woo hoo!!! Also could drop the shocks all in a pile!
The same thing was happening with corn….. first you cut it by hand and made shocks… then this baby came along! 🙂
Of course once harvested from the fields how did one separate the grain from the stalks? In the old days it was done by hand but then old J.I. Case came along with this wonderful invention! Now, this is my favorite machine to watch.. it fascinates me how it cuts, shakes, blows and separates the grain from the stems…. amazing! I go to the tractor shows and watch these Threshers and love it….
You can see them feeding the thresher, at the far end out comes the stalks to feed to the cattle and the grain goes through a chute to a bag! Now, I couldn’t find a film of it, but horses ran these also on what they called a sweep. They would go around in a circle turning the drive… 🙂
What about the corn? Well they used to pick corn then cut it… but when this baby came along… it cut it up and sorted the ears from the stalks! woo hoo!!!
Here is a sweep running a corn shredder…… see how it works? pretty cool..
Horses also had another way of powering machinery and it was by a treadmill……… this one sort of scares ppl, but it worked well and was pretty darn safe… despite its looks…
If you needed more power you could do this….
So, that is a trip back to the farming world a hundred and more years ago….. hope you found it interesting.
Oh… and what would a trip back then be without seeing a collie herd sheep…. 🙂
Collies Of The Meadow 