American Harrow From Over a Hundred Years Ago

Avery Plow • McCormick Plow • Power Dump • Sliding Hammer Strap • Coldframes & Hotbeds • Massey-Harris 50 • Hopkins Mowers

Two management directives led us to a bio-extensive design. First, because our staff is small, we required a system that would provide inherently good weed control. Bermuda grass was a particular concern. Our second directive demanded a reduced dependence on outside fertility inputs, particularly industrial poultry litter. Many, if not most, of the organic market farms in our region depend on broiler or layer litter for annual supplies of nitrogen and organic matter. We wanted an alternative that would be more independent and sustainable.

David’s system of overseeding vegetables with a poly-culture of perennial forages seems like the perfect model for integrating animals with market gardening. In our minds, grazing animals on perennial fallow year cover crops also takes the bio-extensive method to the next level by enhancing soil quality, saving labor and reducing fertility inputs.

Perhaps no other implement a farmer uses is subjected to as hard knocks as is a stalk cutter. It must work on high ridges and low, on frozen ground and in mud. To cut heavy, damp stalks a cutter must have plenty of weight and be so constructed that all that weight can be placed on the knives.

Massey-Harris Cultivator • 40s Auction Poster

When Missy passed, Lloyd turned inside himself tightening his grip on his work, his routine. Through these last years they lived apart and saw each other perhaps once a week to talk and look into each other’s eyes. They, each of them, lived in the knowledge that their perfect mate existed and that, yes, they needed each other and that the distance they chose curiously held them close. Now Missy was gone, and Lloyd felt he was gone as well. Until the young woman, Naomi, showed up announcing she was their daughter and that Lloyd had a grandson.

William renewed his search for the thresher he wanted. He found one advertised in South Carolina but before going through all the effort of finding out how to transport it the 1000+ miles here, he wanted a look at one like it. He contacted the Old Threshers Museum in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and talked to Paul Bishop there. Paul told him that yes, they had one and as a matter of fact, it was currently for sale.