When Keith McElhinney, Morning Sun, Iowa, came across a seeder/planter at an auction, he was immediately hooked. The piece – a Midget No. 2 – was manufactured by American Fork & Hoe Co., Montrose, Iowa.
Morning Sun and Montrose are only about 50 miles apart, but Keith had never heard of American Fork & Hoe Co. That was understandable. Although the company was once prominent, it left Iowa more than a century ago.
For a man who has collected gas engines (mostly Massey-Harris Type 1 engines) for more than 50 years, the seeder was an unusual piece produced by an unfamiliar manufacturer.
An early start-up
American’s roots go back to Standard Garden Tool Co., which was established in 1907 in Iowa. By 1917, Standard had been sold to American Fork & Hoe Co., Cleveland, manufacturer of True-Temper Tools.
In a Nov. 15, 1917, edition of the Montrose Evening Democrat, an article reported that the company’s annual output had grown to 25,000 tools, which were sold direct to jobbers in carload lots. “When running full-time, the plant employs 15 men. The entire output of the company is sold practically over the entire world.”
Small Farm Journals."/>The Democrat went on to note that “The largest enterprise in Montrose is the Standard Garden Tool Co., owned and operated by Robert L. Reed and Willard Hancock, a blacksmith and pioneer garden tool manufacturer.
“When Reed and Hancock established the factory, there were but two other such plants in the U.S. In those days, wheeled garden tools were sold through seed men and were regarded more as a luxury than a necessity. Things have changed, however, and now the wheeled garden tool is universally used, the development of its use being in a great measure to the efforts of the Montrose factory owner and its employees.”
“Entirely set up and ready for use”
Remembering his childhood, when the family vegetable garden was planted entirely by hand, Keith was drawn to the seeder. “We had a big garden,” he says. “We could have used something like this.” And that is exactly what Standard Garden Tool Co. had in mind.
From a 1905 Standard Garden Tool catalog: “This seeder is suitable for the man with a small home garden and is just as useful and efficient as a garden plow. It is entirely set up and ready for use when it leaves the factory, and the only thing necessary for its use is to bolt it to the plow frame and adjust the index to the kind or quantity of seed to be used. The hopper is made of gray iron, the coverer malleable and the seed tube brass; has wire wheel 8 inches high with tire 1-1/4 inches wide.”
Useful for almost any seed
After buying the Midget No. 2 seeder at an auction, Keith found another one in Ohio. Both carry 1914 patent dates and have the same basic design. A wheel drives the star on top. A curved wire opens a hole in the seed tube to the hopper.
In use, the seeder forms a trench, drops seed at precise intervals and covers the seed with soil. The shoe is adjustable for any depth desired, and the coverer swings so that small clods or a little trash does not interfere with operation. Varied cultivating implements were also offered.
The Midget was said to be capable of drilling almost any kind of garden seed, from the smallest seeds up to peas and beans. Keith says it was not designed to use in planting sweet corn. “We used it to plant green beans and radishes,” he says. The seeders were typically bolted to long wooden handles, but some – used in greenhouses – had short handles to use in planting raised beds. “It would have been a huge labor saver,” he says. FC
For more information: Call Keith McElhinney, (319) 868-7611.
Leslie C. McManus is the senior editor of Farm Collector. Email her at LMcManus@ogdenpubs.com