July/August 1973
R. Benjamin Hayes
 |
Nicholas and Shepard outfit at work. Courtesy of R. Benjamin Hayes, Route 3, Homes, Michigan 49245
R. Benjamin Hayes
|
R. 3, Homer, Michigan
This story is about some of my father's threshing machines.
He had a 16 hp Advance Engine with the strait lugs on the drive
wheels and a Rumely 34 x 54 Separator with web straw carrier and
hand feed and weigher and bagger one of the first to have a weigher
to weigh the grain around this part of the country.
As I was born May 10, 1891 I didn't get a chance to work
much with that outfit.
My father's first outfit was a 10 hp Nichols and Shepard
Traction Engine and a N & S Viberator Separator, hand feed and
straw carrier and the Old Talley box, for measuring the grain.
I have most of my father's account books, as far back as
1890 where it referred to the threshing of grain at the price of
1-1/2 cents for oats and 2-1/2 cents for wheat and rye per
bushel.
The prices for labor was from $1.00 to $1.50 per day and it
wasn't just 8 hours - it was at least 10 hours and sometimes
longer when they had to move at night to the next job, maybe 4 or 5
miles.
Also it shows where he sawed long polies into stovewood with his
buzzsaw and 10 hp N & S Engine and (one man at $ 1.00 a day)
team and tank wagon for the big price of $.50 per hour or $5.00 for
10 hours work. Remember this was in the 1890's not 1973.
Well I guess you old timers don't care too much about the
Good Old Days some people tell about.
My father was Frederick B. Hayes born Feb. 2, 1859. He threshed
for about 25 years. He also had a Reeves sawmill with cast iron
husk and Birdsell No. 1 clover huller and an Appleton 26 inch
cut silo filler and 80 acres of land with house and barn and a
little shop where he would shoe horses for his neighbors for only
50 cents for four shoes. He would go out in the spring and shear
sheep for 3 cents to 5 cents per head.