Remembering fodder cutters and hay choppers

I read with interest your article on corn and hay choppers. When I was a kid, in about 1925, my dad bought a chopper. It had a wood frame, a lawnmower-type cutter with one or two feed rolls, a large flywheel on the side and a lever to stop the rolls if the power got short.

My dad put it up in the hay barn by a door because he used a 6 hp Fairbanks engine for power. The engine was outside down on the ground. Corn bundles were pitched up in the hay barn, and the next day they chopped the bundles. The chopped feed went through a hole in the floor to a feed room below where it was fed like silage. By coincidence the chopper my dad bought was up in a hayloft and was powered by a windmill on the roof of the barn.

I sure enjoy Farm Collector. I read it from cover to cover before I go to bed.