Waynesburg, Ohio
The Spring of 1923 was wet! Here in east-central Ohio it rained
at least a shower every day in May, and the first ten days of
June.
We improved our time by repairing an 8-16 International
Harvester tractor for another farmer while it rained. The
arrangement, which was mutually beneficial, was that the farmer
would buy the parts and we would be paid for our labor by the use
of the tractor in putting in our corn crop.
This arrangement gave us a work force of two tractors, our new
15-30 McCormick-Deering and the above 8-16 I.H. plus our team of
mules.
The rains finally let up on the 10th of June, so we got the job
going and in five and one half days we had finished it. It rained a
shower the day we finished.
We nursed the corn crop along through the wet summer and by
September we realized that at least one-third of the crop would be
soft, and should be used up fairly quickly. These soft ears would
go right through the snapping rolls of the husker-shredder and most
of it would end up with the shredded fodder in the mow, which would
mean more trouble by possible heating.
(During normal years we followed the practice of turning the
blower head to shoot straight up, allowing the shredded fodder to
come down like rain into the mow.)
‘MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD SITUATION’
We studied this problem for several days, coming up with the
following answer.
We would first check the I.H. branch house to see if a 4 knife
cutter head and shear plate and bearing bases were available for
our old 1904 4-roll McCormick husker and shredder. (A 4 knife
cutter head gave a inch cut.) The parts were available, even in a
package deal. We ordered same, then turned our attention to finding
a good, used wood stave silo. One was found – an Indiana silo
10′ x 26′ for $50.00. We closed the deal, then contacted
the Indiana salesman and erector, who agreed to tear down and
rebuild same, including 10′ x 6′ pit of tile, for a modest
sum, involving six days work with our help.
