648
HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
All farm work was done by hand and with the crudest Implements. The plow of the pioneers was an iron-share and land-side, with a wooden or strap-iron mold-board. Later our farmers used a cast-iron mold-board, set so squarely against the furrow, in an effort to make it scour, that it was a terrible draft for the team, and drawn at a fast walk would frequently turn the sod a complete somerset. Gradually this gave place to the long, easy-sloping, polished steel moldboard of today. The harrow was a rough heavy triangle or square with bars across, set with uneven blacksmith forged iron teeth or wooden pegs, and was usually made on the farm. All sowing was done by hand broadcast. The shovels, hoes, rakes, etc., were entirely hand-made, very heavy, rough an-1 dull, and wearisome to use. Grain was cut with the cradle, which was then a comparatively new harvesting implement, for many settlers brought sickles with them from the Bast. The older "turkey wing" and the new-fashioned "grapevine" or "muley," were each hotly championed as the best cradles. Of course, the grain was raked and bound by hand, the bands being made by forming with a dexterous turn of the hands, a knot with the heads of a good handful of straight grain stalks, and so dividing it as to give a double length to pass around the bundle, and being drawn tight, twist the butts together, and turn and tuck the ends in a bow under the band.
At harvest time every available person in the community was urgently needed to secure the crop. Literally many people worked night and day, and often on Sunday. Frequently the shocking was done by starlight; the stacking resumed after supper and continued far into the night. Breakfast was over at sunrise; luncheon was served at about ten o'clock; from twelve to one was given to dinner and rest; luncheon again about four or five o'clock; then work until sunset and finally supper, was the usual day's routine in the harvest time. Jugs of water were always accessible in the field, and many farmers furnished whisky also, which could be bought at any grocery store for eighteen or twenty cents a gallon. Swinging the cradle from sunrise to sunset with three or four strong men pressing steadily behind or leading away in front, with the utmost possible reach of the cradle into the standing grain and laying each cut evenly into the swath, and all
with cadenced step and stroke that had to be met and equaled, was indeed laborous toil. To rake the grain cleanly and bind it firmly and evenly and keep up with a good cradler, required a mighty active handy man, and it was considered an annoying feat to crowd the cradler by raking the grain from the fingers of the cradle before it was aid in the swath. So there usually was strife in the gang, and an effort to crowd and "push" each other.
During the first few years of the occupancy of his claim, the early settler's most strenuous efforts were necessary to produce enough for the immediate pressing needs of his family; then, to improve somewhat the comforts and conveniences of living, and gradually to enlarge his facilities for raising larger crops with which to pay for his land at the Government sale. The first small crops were frequently threshed with a flail of his own manufacture, or trampled out by the colts upon a closely-cut grass sod, and the carefully swept up grain was winnowed in the breeze upon a sheet of cloth. The first threshing machine was a terror; they called it a "squirt machine." It was simply a wooden cylinder and concave, each set with iron teeth not too firmly fastened in place, and that some-tines flew out with fearful velocity. The straw, chaff, dirt and grain were hurled from it in a mass. The heavier grains of wheat came flying from the cloud of stuff and rattled around like bird shot from a musket, and it was a frightfully wasteful affair. A separator and straw carrier, however, was soon devised and attached to it.
There were, of course, no granaries or barns, and the threshed grain was stored usually at the place of threshing in cribs made of rails so laid that the thin edge of each rail was toward the outer side, and the crib was flaring, larger at the top, thus excluding the rain. The bottom, also, was of flat rails laid closely together, and raised a foot or more above the ground, and the whole was lined with straw. The sides and ends were laid up cob-house fashion, and the straw lining arranged as the grain was poured into it. When the grain was all in, rails were laid across a few inches above it, and the whole nicely roofed with straw, topped off with wild hay. The grain was excellently preserved except from the ravages of mice. Corn was cribbed in the same way, the straw lining being omitted. Corn was husked in the field and,
