When my parents purchased the Klanderman farm it included the land, buildings, livestock, and farm machinery. As a boy I was always intrigued by some of the primitive farm tools that were still hanging on the tool shed walls. Some of these tools had been invented and used since the dawn of civilization thousands of years ago. There was the scythe and the sickle used to cut hay or cornstalks, the grain cradle was used to cut grain, and the flail was used to thresh the grain by beating on the grain stalks. Some of these tools were mentioned in the first Books of the Bible. Deuteronomy 16 vs. 9 is one of them: “Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.”
For haying there was an old wooden rake and pitch forks used to load the loose hay on high wooden wheeled wagons. There was the ox yoke used to harness the power of oxen for tiling the soil or pulling a wagon. There were hand corn planters, potato planters, and hoes to cut weeds.
Many poor immigrants would often hire out as day laborers using tools like the grass scythe to cut the hay as a first source of income when they arrived in this area. There were n o manure spreaders. Manure was brought to the field on wagons and spread out with a fork. Corn stalks were cut in the fall with a sickle and set in shocks to be husked later.
Before planting crops the early settlers in Borculo had to clear the land of the trees and brush. They were both lumbermen and farmers. Many settlers sold the good timber to local sawmills as a source of income. They pulled the logs out of the woods and swamp with oxen or horses. Some of the timber was used in building houses and barns. Some trees were squared up into barn beams with a broad axe. We had some hand hewned beams in our barn that were over 40 feet long and chopped almost perfectly square. As more land was cleared the farmers were then able to use horse drawn implements like the mowing machine, the grain binder, the grain drill, and the hay loaders. Before the tractor was invented there were stationary engines mounted on steel silo fillers, corn huskers, and other belt driven farm machinery. The stationary engines were pulled around by a team of horses. The early threshing machines were powered by steam engines. Eventually the gasoline tractor replaced the steam engine.
In 1919 my grandfather bought a new Fordson tractor. With this powerful tractor he was able to plow and disc his farm land faster and work longer days on his 140 acre farm than with horses alone. The tractor was also efficient to use for belt power on his silo filler and corn husker. This was progress, however field work had changed for the operator of the tractor. On the negative side was listening to the deafening roar of the engine, the whine of the gears, and the smell of the exhaust fumes. Missing was the sweet odor of clover and quiet sounds of the horses as they turned the furrows over with the plow. Many farmers were not too excited about buying one of these clumsy tractors. These tractors were hard to start in cold weather. Like the Model T car, you had to set the spark just right on the steering column. If you didn’t, the crank would kick backward and break your arm.
Eventually these clumsy tractors evolved into the modern tractors we have today, one hundred years later. Today many tractors have air conditioned cabs and computers to control the attached implements.
Bob Essenburg