Fulda, Minnesota 56131
The thresher I recently purchased from friends in Kentucky is
one of the early models of the J. I. Case agitator thresher which
came out in 1880. This was the forerunne: of today’s threshing
machines. As time went on, and some improvement was made in regard
of the principle of threshing and doing a good clean job.
This model machine was bought new by John Mack about 1885. He
moved to Kentucky then and settled in Franklin and this machine was
shipped there by railroad. This model machine was built for sweep
horse power. It required from ten to twelve horses to furnish
power.
This power was slow and very uneven speed, so it required slow
threshing to about 250 to 350 bushels per day. So this machine was
not used too much after it was shipped down South, as the steam
engine slowly took over the horse power work.
Then this machine was not only used on the farm just for their
own threshing as the machine still had horse power attachments on
it. But in 1905, the power attachment was moved and a belt pulley
was converted in its place. At that time, Mr. Mack bought a used 12
H. P. Huber steam engine. Then there was plenty of good power and
they could thresh from sunup to sundown and could thresh much more
grain per day.
But there was another handicap against this machine. It required
so many men to run this old machine, two men to cut bands, two men
to feed the machine three men in the straw stack and four men to
handle the grain from the machine to the granary, as all the grain
was handled in sacks by hand.
This was the first machine I worked on in 1905 as a boy of
thirteen years. I helped with filling the sacks with wheat as that
was the main grain to be threshed. Other small jobs also had to be
done around this machine. That is the reason I wished to have this
machine bought as a hobby and for the great interest in the
threshing machine and engine business.
