D. 2, Granville, Ohio
Enclosed is a picture of some oats threshing here at home last
season (1956). It looks a little artificial without the customary
smoke Miss Huber seldom gets even a haze from soft Ohio coal. In
the picture we are running a little oats outside in an attempt to
find some dry enough to stay cool.
This would have been some year for a custom run. We finally
threshed our wheat and pulled the machine in spreading some eleven
bundle wagon loads of oats over the mows to be fed in the
sheaf.
Despite the adverse weather this season we threshed for two good
reasons: First, and often told by people who like engines, no
engine was ever built to do work Work exists as an excuse to run an
engine. My second reason for threshing has to do with cattle
feeding. We threshe our barns full, gangway and all, right over the
hay. Now, as we feed in the winter, we shake out the straw for
bedding so that the chaff, shriveled seeds, pods leaves, etc., can
be swept into the hay racks.
I estimate that during the feeding season some 3 to 5 tons of
chaff are fed with the hay to 60 head of Herefords in one barn the
hay racks have never required cleaning of refuse in several years.
Sugar deficiency in cattle came to us with the combine, it being no
concern where the chaff is fed or where the cattle can run to a
stack.
Our magazine is filled with experiences of those who enjoy
engines and don’t mind drawing a crowd. We qualify on both
counts Having a Dad who liked the music for 55 years, and having
fed 80 ‘threshers’ on one day of threshing. Admitting these
things we thresh also because that is the way we want the job
done.
