Watertown, South Dakota
My short article about the Excello, Nichols & Shepard
separator and my idea that they bad borrowed some of the features
of the machine from M. Rumely Products Co., seems to have stirred
up a lot. My statement was not a statement of fact, but with the
idea that somebody would know the case history of the Excello. Our
with complete details.
Now for our friend from Algoma, Iowa, Mr. Frank Stebritz, I did
not say in my article of Sept. Oct. that Rumley was the first to
use the finger lifters in a separator. I stated that several
thresher companies were building their separators along the lines
of Rumley Ideal and I still stick to my statement 100 percent. When
I mention Rumley’s machine, I am talking about the model of
1915 and not some old time Rumley with a canvas conveyor. That was
a headache both for the Rumley Company and the thresherman who
operated it. My opinion is that the finger lift was originally used
by our grandfathers (B. T.) before threshing machines when they
separated the straw from the grain and chaff with a wooden spiked
fork. M. Rumley’s 1915 model separator had grain pan and straw
racks almost identical with those used by J. I. Case Company’s
agitator separator of 1888 and the lifting fingers added to shake
the straw up and down as it passed through the machine.
I may be able to find a cut-out view of the 1915 Rumley and if I
do I will have the ALBUM reproduce it for all the readers to see.
Although Mr. Stebritz does not think much of lifting fingers
according to his article, he went back for a second helping and I
want to congratulate him for his good judgment of threshers.
