Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Farm Collector

The genius of pioneer inventors can confound us. Countless contraptions that revolutionized farming in the 19th and early 20th centuries have become contemporary curiosities, or even mysteries. Here are six sent in by readers. Do you know what they are? Answers to the November 2021 items will appear in the January 2022 issue. Answers for new items in this issue must be received by Nov. 5, 2021. NOVEMBER MYSTERY TOOLS To submit photos: Send prints to Farm Collector, 1503 SW 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609. Send digital images to editor@farmcollector.com. • Photos should be taken in a well-lit area against a plain background. Include dimensions and markings on the piece, and your name, city and state. We cannot guarantee every photo will be published. No photos will be returned. • Digital…

When we think of farm equipment today, we don’t think of department stores where we can buy everything from clothes to appliances – but that is where some of us would have gone looking for such things in the past. In the mid-1800s, salesman Aaron Montgomery Ward traveled through rural America, selling wares to the country and farm folks with no convenient source for “the nicer things” unavailable at small local stores. Over the years, he paid close attention to his customers’ wants and needs. He sought sources to provide the products and then made arrangement for delivery direct to the customer. Ward did this for some time before founding the Montgomery Ward & Co. mail order and department store in Chicago in 1872 (the company closed its doors in…

Hands-on experience with a Dow-Law planter Dan Manning’s story in the June 2021 issue of Farm Collector on horse-drawn planters and fertilizer distributors was very interesting to me, as I have restored some old equipment. I found a Dow-Law cotton planter about 25 years ago in a barn in Warren County, Georgia. I rebuilt it to be as correct as possible. I put it on display at the Lincoln County Historical Park cotton gin with other horse-drawn planters and fertilizer distributors in Lincolnton, Georgia. We have a Cole, W.F. Covington, Gantt and a Wilson pot or bowl cotton planter. All were donated by different people. Four of the pieces had never been used. I brought the Dow-Law home and made a change on the rear for covering seeds. Twenty-five years ago,…

The 2021 corn harvest is underway now. Soon the crop will be transported to bins where farmers wait hopefully for the market price to rise. In the old days, the corn harvest started in the fall and usually took most of the winter to complete. In fact, more acres are planted in corn than any other crop, which makes “King Corn” the most valuable crop grown in the U.S., even though its price per bushel doesn’t impress the farmer who markets his harvest. In English-speaking countries, “corn” is the most commonly used name for that country’s biggest cash crop. Thus, in England “corn” refers to wheat. In Scotland and Ireland, the term is used for oats, and in the U.S., Canada and Australia, corn is the common name of North…

The perfect farmstead, the flawless day and the best threshing machinery: The artist celebrated the agricultural ideal in this outstanding 30-by-24-inch chromolithograph poster printed by Chas. Sober, proprietor of Chicago Lithe. Co. The poster dates to 1876, when the same artwork appeared on the front cover of an 1876 Russell & Co. pocket memo booklet. The poster is a superb example of farm machinery advertising art. Under close examination, countless details emerge that had not been seen previously. Charles M. Russell and two of his brothers, Clement and Nahum, started C.M. Russell & Co. in 1839 and began manufacturing agricultural implements in Massillon, Ohio. In 1842, the name was changed to Russell & Co. By 1844, the company had begun manufacture of Massillon threshers and separators; straw stackers, clover hullers…

Much more than urban dwellers, farm folks make an effort to be self-sufficient. There are two good reasons for that. First is the fact that the basics of life are dealt with on a day-by-day basis. After all, agriculture and what it produces is the basis of all life. Second, living some distance from modern conveniences, farmers are responsible for those things themselves at least part of the time. If you are totally dependent on electrical service, disruptions in power supply – a regular part of life in rural areas – can be devastating. The tried-and-true method of making sure one’s home has a heat source independent of the power grid is to have a woodburning stove. No matter what happens with the weather – extreme cold, high winds or…

LAVERN GINGERICH IS OUR NOVEMBER WINNER! LaVern Gingerich, 13, the son of Noah and Laura Gingerich, Kirksville, Missouri, is this month’s featured artist, and will receive a Farm Collector T-shirt: Congratulations, LaVern! Have a budding artist in your family? Send your kids’ or grandkids’ farm-related artwork to Farm Collector, and we’ll send a T-shirt to the monthly winner. Send submissions to Farm Collector, 1503 SW 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609-1265. Please include the artist’s name, age and hometown and a recent photograph. A release form will be sent to the parents of each artist whose work is selected for publication; the release must be signed and returned to Farm Collector before the artwork can be published. For more information, contact us at editor@farmcollector.com.…

PART TWO: In a two-part series, author Robert Pripps drills deep to uncover the entrepreneurial and fiercely competitive spirit that propelled Daniel Best and Benjamin Holt to an eventual consolidation launching Caterpillar. In the second and final part presented in this issue, Pripps takes us into the spiral of competitive and innovative developments that led to a remarkable consolidation. In the latter part of the 19th century, two driven and ambitious young men launched successful companies in California. Over the years, diverse product offerings from each man’s company eventually funneled into a singular focus: creation of the tracked tractor that the world knows today as the Caterpillar. In part two of Rival Forces: Best and Holt, we trace the evolution of the tracked tractor and the convergence of Holt and…

Toys cherished during childhood have a way of becoming relevant again in adulthood. Decades after first playing with a Marx wind-up climbing toy tractor as a boy, Perry Coziahr came across one at a flea market. That launched a collection that today numbers 60 – and an active restoration operation. “Disassembly and repair are a lot like restoring old farm tractors (another hobby of mine), robbing parts off of old salvage toys to make one good toy out of two,” he says. “I have concentrated on toys from the early 1930s to 1950s because the earlier toys are madxe of tin, rather than plastic.” Marx lithographed patterns on large sheets of tinplate steel. The sheets were then stamped, die-cut, folded and assembled. “They’re a fascinating toy. There are no batteries,…