Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i Farm Collector

By this point in the summer, you may have had all the hot weather you want. While Farm Collector can’t change the weather, we can share a story that just might cool you off a bit. In this issue, Don McKinley shares memories of ice harvests near his home town in southwest Iowa. This is not a new topic for Farm Collector. Over the years, we have published articles on ice harvests, but none of them were first-hand accounts. Most relied heavily on historic accounts for details, and accompanying images were often limited to illustrations depicting ice harvests, with photos of ice harvest tools from collections. Just a boy as local ice harvests were winding down, Don’s involvement was limited to that of observer. While the men toiling at a…

This chromolithograph dates to the earliest days of the Case organization, before the company became known as J.I. Case Plow Works. Jerome Increase Case launched the company in 1876 as Case Whiting Co. Ebenezer G. Whiting had developed a center draft plow and J.I. Case provided financing for the venture. In 1878, the company was renamed J.I. Case Plow Co. In 1884 it was renamed again, as J.I. Case Plow Works. Case withdrew from management of J.I. Case Plow Works and named his son, Jackson I. Case, as president. The elder Case died in 1891. In 1927 the J.I. Case Plow Co. was sold to Massey-Harris Co., Toronto, Ontario, Canada. That company sold the J.I. Case name to the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Co., which, in 1928, changed its corporate…

Connecting dots on rubber tires In reading the well-written articles by Sam Moore (Farm Collector, March and April 2021), I was reminded of a poster I photographed last February at a museum in Winter Garden, Florida. It features Case dealer Hoyle Pounds. His most famous invention was the rubber tractor tire (Patent No. 1,662,208, awarded March 13, 1928). I have to wonder if Mr. Firestone, who was a friend of Mr. Edison and Mr. Ford and visited them in Ft. Myers, Florida, happened to visit Winter Garden on his way back home to Ohio and learned of Mr. Pounds’ invention. Throughout his life, Pounds continued to invent new equipment. He was the first to adapt LP gas to farm tractors. Bradford DeVries, Coopersville, Michigan Aftermarket kit used on Farmall M…

The grand opening of the Paris Universal Exposition was April 14, 1900, although very few buildings or exhibits were complete, and scaffolding had to be hurriedly (and temporarily) removed so the president of France could cut the ribbon. Meant to be a glittering showcase of the industrial and technological might of the Western world on the eve of a new century, the exposition drew 76,000 exhibitors from all over the world who did their best to impress more than 50 million visitors. These visitors, also from all over the world, saw such wonders as a moving sidewalk, wireless telegraphy and a moving staircase called an “escalator.” The June 7, 1900, issue of Farm Implement News describes the large American contribution to the extensive agricultural portion of the event, even though…

Picture the scene: It is rural Britain and we are in the midst of World War II. All of our healthy male workforce is away, fighting in the war in France, and there simply aren’t enough people to run our farms. Farming is more important than ever as our nation is beginning to run out of food, and very little can be shipped in due to blockades. Women have been asked to volunteer for the Women’s Land Army and leave the cities to come to work on our farms. These women become known as “Land Girls,” and their work is now recognised as being instrumental in keeping Britain fed during wartime. There is a sense of chaos in the farming community: Most of these young female recruits come from cities…

Do you remember the famous television commercial where an elderly woman confronted a fast food outlet with the strident question, “Where’s the beef?” That commercial was so popular that her question became part of the American lexicon. The great thing about it is the last word in the question can be (and has been) changed to thousands of different things, depending on who was repeating the challenge. The basic concept remained the same: Something important was lacking. Note the third word in the title of this article. It is my assertion that 99.9 percent of all photos of farming operations lack any indication of the one element every farmer confronts daily on a personal basis: airborne dirt. This statement excludes pictures of the ground itself and the myriad photos of…

When Jim Hare, the first postmaster of Burns Township, contacted the U.S. Postal Service to request a post office in Burns Township, Minnesota, his request was denied because a township in another county had already been issued the name. Responding to a request for another name, Hare offered several alternatives. In closing his letter, he ended with the word “nowthen” and his signature. Unaware of the fact that Hare routinely started and ended every sentence with that word, postal authorities apparently thought it was a worthy name for the new post office and formalized the name as the Nowthen Post Office. In 1894, the Nowthen Post Office was closed, but local residents continued to refer to the area as Nowthen. On Dec. 12, 2007, Burns Township filed a petition with…

BUILDING SMALL BARNS SHEDS & SHELTERS Here is everything you need to know to build your own outbuildings, including tool sheds, woodsheds, barns, underground root cellars, smokehouses, animal shelters and fences. Monte Burch provides easy-to-follow instructions along with complete information on tools and materials, foundations, floors, framing, sheathing, roofing, wiring, plumbing, adding doors and windows, finishing details, and more. Item: #525 $18.95 $16.11 AMERICA’S RURAL YESTERDAY Best Seller! VOLUME 1: FIELDWORK America’s Rural Yesterday transports the reader to another time, when life moved slower and family and community was important. More than 100 photos by famed photographer J.C. Allen show fieldwork, including planting, tilling, harvesting, and more. Also included are shots of threshing, corn shelling, milling, and haystacking. Horses, mules, oxen, vintage tractors, and steam engines provided the power back…

TUCKER COOPER AGE 14 TUCKER COOPER IS OUR SEPTEMBER WINNER! Tucker Cooper, 14, is this month’s featured artist. The son of Stephanie Cooper, Clayton, Indiana, Tucker will receive a Farm Collector T-shirt: Congratulations, Tucker! 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.…

When a partially disassembled engine turned up at a February 2021 auction, it almost immediately caused a buzz in the gas engine collector world. The auction listing’s humble description – “flywheel engine missing parts” – gave no indication of the engine’s rarity. A photo showed little more than a piston and cylinder lying on top of the engine. But serious collectors pegged it as one of only a very few Sorg engines – if not the only Sorg – known to exist. Today, the engine belongs to Ed Laginess, Carleton, Michigan. Ed was the successful bidder in the February auction. Marv Hedberg, Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, restored the engine for him. A unique design feature – the piston remains stationary, and the cylinder reciprocates – leaves no doubt that the piece…

I grew up on a small dairy farm here in northern Wisconsin. We called it a “60 50” farm because although we did have some modern things, we still did some things the old way, and hay was one of them. We put up our hay loose. For years, we used a horse mower pulled behind the tractor to cut the hay. We used a sidedelivery rake to gather it and put it in windrows. Then we’d hook up the wagon and then the hay loader. This was similar to a baler but only to pick up the hay and move it up and onto the wagon. One of us would be on the wagon to spread out the hay. Once it was loaded came the next part. In the…