Early 20th Century Avery Two-row Riding Corn Planter

 This corn planter was made by the Avery Company of Peoria, Illinois. Like the nearby planters, this machine dug, planted, and covered corn seeds as it was pulled across the field by horses.
 Like the neighboring Deere & Mansur corn planter, this Avery planter has a check wire attachment. This attachment performed the same task as the wheels on the nearby one-row walking planter and the levers near the front seat of the neighboring Farmers Friend planter. It triggered the planting mechanism near the bottom of the tubes located behind the trench-digging blades, allowing the corn seeds to fall into the trench before being covered by the concave wheels.
 This check row attachment was used with the check wire you can see attached to this planter, and with the stakes found next to the Deere & Mansur planter. The stakes would have been placed at each end of the field, holding the check wire taut as the planter was pulled from one end to the other. As the tractor moved, the check wire passed through the check row attachment located on the side of the planter.
 As the wire passed through the attachment, each knot, or tappet, in the wire triggered the forked lever inside the attachment. The knots – located 40 to 42 inches apart, or the width of a horse – would catch the forked lever and move it back before releasing it. That movement back is what triggered the planting mechanism, dropping the seeds.
 Each knot in the wire is located the width of a horse apart so that the farmer could cross-cultivate the cornfield. The horse pulling the cultivator could walk along the same path that the horse(s) walked while pulling the planter. Since the seeds were dropped 40 to 42 inches apart, that same horse could also pull the cultivator along paths perpendicular to the paths created while planting.

Check wire with knots (tappets).

The maker of this corn planter, the Avery Company, was founded by Robert H. and Cyrus M. Avery, both born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois.  Robert, the older of the two brothers, enlisted to fight for the Union during the American Civil War.  In 1862, he joined Company A of the 77th Illinois Infantry, eventually becoming a sergeant.  During his first couple years, he served in the Army of the Mississippi, participating in the siege of Vicksburg as well as the fighting at Arkansas Post, Jacksonville, and Shreveport.  In August, 1864, Robert was captured by Confederates and was held prisoner for about eight-and-a-half months in a variety of places, including about five-and-a-half months in Andersonville. While waiting in prison, Robert developed ideas for farm implements, including a cultivator, and possibly a stalk cutter and a corn planter.  When he was released after the war, Robert eventually made his way back to Illinois where he joined with his brother, Cyrus, to start a company and to make his ideas a reality.

By the early 1870s, they had established R. H. & C. M. Avery in Galesburg.  They found a large and ready market for their implements and, after about a decade in Galesburg, they found they needed to move to larger and better facilities.  In 1882, the Avery brothers relocated their business to Peoria and had a new factory built next to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad line.  In 1883, they organized and renamed their venture the Avery Planter Company.  During the next several years, the company continued to grow, employing about three hundred workers by 1890.  Robert died in 1892, but Cyrus continued to lead the company into the twentieth century.  In 1900, Cyrus reorganized the growing company as the Avery Manufacturing Company.  After Cyrus’ death in 1905, J. B. Bartholomew took over the company, reorganizing it again as the Avery Company in 1907.
In 1912, the Avery Company plant covered about twenty-seven acres, including nearly six-and-a-half acres of floor space in the factory and warehouses.  The company employed about 1,300 workers and made a wide variety of products, including steam traction engines (one steam traction engine is here in Stuhr Museum’s exhibit), gasoline tractors (two can be found in this exhibit), threshing machines, farm wagons, riding and walking cultivators, stalk cutters, corn planters (including this one), and the “Self-Lift” gang plow (one can be found outside this building).  The Avery Company sold their products across the United States, as well as to markets in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the Argentine Republic, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Sweden, Egypt, China, the Philippines, and Cuba.

Notes

For a brief biography of Robert H. Avery, including details about his Civil War experiences, see Portrait and Biographical Album of Peoria County, Illinois. Volume 2. Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Presidents of the United States and Governors of the State (Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co., 1890), pp. 951-952.
Much of the narrative here can be found in individual biographies found in Peoria City and County, Illinois: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, vol. II (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912), pp. 27, 181-183, 246-248, 662-665, and 787-788.

Early 20th Century Deere & Mansur Two-row Riding Corn Planter

 This riding corn planter was made by the Deere & Mansur Company in Moline, Illinois. Like the nearby planters, this machine dug, planted, and covered corn seeds as it was pulled across the field by horses.
 Like the neighboring Avery corn planter, this Deere & Mansur planter has a check wire attachment. This attachment performed the same task as the wheels on the nearby one-row walking planter and the levers near the front seat of the nearby Farmers Friend planter. It triggered the planting mechanism near the bottom of the tubes located behind the trench-digging blades, allowing the corn seeds to fall into the trench before being covered by the concave wheels.
 This check row attachment, which you can see close up from the south walkway, was used with the check wire and stakes found with this planter. The stakes would have been placed at each end of the field, holding the check wire taut as the planter was pulled from one end to the other. As the tractor moved, the check wire passed through the check row attachment located on the side of the planter.
 As the wire passed through the attachment, each knot, or tappet, in the wire triggered the forked lever inside the attachment. The knots – located 40 to 42 inches apart, or the width of a horse – would catch the forked lever and move it back before releasing it. That movement back is what triggered the planting mechanism, dropping the seeds.
 Each knot in the wire is located the width of a horse apart so that the farmer could cross-cultivate the cornfield. The horse pulling the cultivator could walk along the same path that the horse(s) walked while pulling the planter. Since the seeds were dropped 40 to 42 inches apart, that same horse could also pull the cultivator along paths perpendicular to the paths created while planting.
 This Deere & Mansur planter has two patent dates located underneath the seed box, or hopper, lids:
November 28, 1893, corresponding to patent 509797, a patent for a combined check row and drill, which you can view as a pdf here; this patent was reissued on July 23, 1895, as Reissued Patent 11504; and
September 10, 1901, corresponding to patent 682178, a patent for a dropping mechanism for corn planters, which you can view as a pdf here.

A view of the planter with check wire placed under the seat.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century One-row Walking Corn Planter

 Although it may look simple, this corn planter is a very mechanized piece of equipment. Instead of digging a trench with a hoe and planting the corn by hand, farmers could use this planter and a horse to do the job much more efficiently. Pulled by that horse, this planter dug a shallow trench, dropped corn seeds into the trench, and covered those seeds all in one pass. The mechanics comes in the form of the wheels, axle, and planting mechanism.
 As the horse pulled the planter forward and the farmer steered it with the two handles, the uniquely shaped wheels triggered the planting mechanism underneath the cylindrical box. A rotating plate with holes inside the box allowed the seeds to pass down into and through a small tube to the earth below. The seeds would drop into the trench formed by the blade, or runner, at the planter's front. After the seeds were dropped, the two shovels at the planter's rear pushed soil into a short pile over the seeds. By using this planter instead of a hoe and a bag of seeds, farmers could save themselves time and back-breaking labor, not to mention money and food needed to hire extra farm hands. Mechanization like that found in this planter allowed horsepower to replace manpower on North American prairie farms throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Early 20th Century Herschel No. 11 H Wheelbarrow Grass Seeder

 This wheelbarrow grass seeder was made by the R. Herschel Manufacturing Company in East Peoria, Illinois. It was made to drop a wide variety of grass seeds, including timothy, millet, alfalfa, and crimson clover. In order to use it, a farmer first needed to decide how much seed to sow per acre. By moving a pin into the different holes on the arm between the wheel and the seed box, that farmer could sow anywhere from 1 quart (if the pin were in hole #2) per acre to 24 quarts (if the pin were in #12) per acre. By moving the pin, the farmer was moving the pivot point of the arm as it moved between the wheel and the box. As the farmer pushed the wheelbarrow forward, the uniquely shaped wheel moved the arm which in turn moved a chain running the length of the seed box, or hopper. The movement of that chain caused the seeds to shift inside the box and some of those seeds to fall through holes in the box's bottom onto the ground.

 First organized in Peoria, Illinois, in 1887, and incorporated in 1893, the R. Herschel Manufacturing Company grew rapidly as a producer of various sections and knives for reapers, binders, and mowers. When fire destroyed its first plant in 1898, the company quickly occupied a building in Peoria recently evacuated by the Nicol-Burr Foundry & Machine Company in order to continue production. Within a few years, by around 1901, the company was able to build its own factory in East Peoria. By 1911, that factory was making a wide assortment of products, including revolving hay rakes, lawn mowers, pitman boxes, singletrees and doubletrees, reel arms and reel fans, and garden tools, among other parts and tools.
 Thanks to relatively easy access to water and coal, and thanks to its location near several railroad lines, the company thrived during the early years of the 20th century, obtaining an international market along with a national market. According to a 1911 issue of Farm Implement News, the company shipped its goods to "South America, Germany, France, England, Switzerland, Russia, Sweden, Siberia, Australia and other grain producing countries." By 1911, the company's American presence included branch houses and jobbers in Minneapolis; Omaha; Kansas City; Elmira, New York; Philadelphia; Saginaw, Michigan; and Dallas.

From The Implement Age, vol. XXXVIII,
no. 14 (October 7, 1911), p. 24.

Notes

Information on the R. Herschel Manufacturing Company in 1906 is from Farm Implement News, vol. XXVII, no. 3 (January 18, 1906), pp. 33-34a.
Information on the R. Herschel Manufacturing Company's products and international market in 1911 is from The Implement Age, vol. XXXVIII, no. 14 (October 7, 1911), p. 24.
Information on the R. Herschel Manufacturing Company's branch houses and jobbers in 1911 is from the Farm Implement News Buyers Guide, vol. XXI (Chicago: Farm Implement News Company, 1911).

Late 19th to Early 20th Century Farmers Friend Two-row Riding Corn Planter

 This corn planter was made by the Farmers Friend Manufacturing Company of Dayton, Ohio. An example of mechanization in agriculture, this and the other planters nearby in this exhibit reveal the shift from manpower to horsepower that took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like the nearby planters, this machine saved farmers a lot of time and energy when compared to the older way of planting, which often involved using a hoe and planting the seeds by hand.
 Unlike the neighboring two-row corn planters, this planter does not have a check row attachment. Instead of allowing the knots in the check wire to trip the planting mechanism in the planter, a person sitting on the front seat activated the mechanism by hand on this planter by pulling or pushing on the two levers located next to that seat (one lever is missing). Blades, or runners, located at the front of the planter dug a trench while the concave wheels covered the planted seeds with soil.
 Incorporated in 1871, the Farmers Friend Manufacturing Company made not only corn planters, but also corn drills, grain drills, harrows, cultivators, and fertilizer. One of the patents for this corn planter may be patent 496114, issued in 1893, which you can view as a pdf here. Another possible patent for this machine, also from 1893, is patent 498954, which you can view as a pdf here.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century Aspinwall Potato Planter

Made sometime between the 1890s and the early 1920s in Jackson, Michigan, this Aspinwall potato planter would have made life a lot easier for a farmer who grew potatoes as a major crop. Throughout North America, including the prairie, many farmers and their families would have dedicated a great deal of time and energy to the potato planting process; and just as the Hoover potato digger in this exhibit paid for itself many times over in its saving of time and energy during the harvesting season, so to did this potato planter during the planting season.

Even before using this planter, the potato planting process was quite involved. Prior to planting potatoes in the ground, a farmer needed to cut up a number of potato spuds that had produced eyes or sprouts. These eyes or sprouts would eventually grow into new plants. During the week before planting, the farmer and his family or hired hands would cut these potatoes in halves or quarters (or maybe in smaller pieces). When he was ready to begin planting, the farmer then loaded these recently cut potato seeds into two containers placed inside the metal frame at the back of this planter.

Here you can see the empty metal frame, the two chutes for
the potatoes to move down toward the grabbing blades, and
the two discs which pushed dirt over the planted seeds.

In order to use the planter, the farmer would hook it up to two horses using the wooden tongue you can see attached to the planter’s front. As the horses pulled the planter forward across the potato field, a wide blade at the planter’s front dredged a relatively shallow trench in the ground, about three or four inches deep, in which the potato seeds would be dropped.

Also, as the horses pulled the planter forward, two sets of blades inside the machine – they look somewhat like pizza cutter blades – rotated like a ferris wheel, being attached by gears to the planter wheels. As these sets of blades – there are two sets of three blades – moved around, they “grabbed” individual potato seeds. The design of the two chutes you can see from the walkway and of this rotating blade mechanism kept all of the seeds from falling down into the machine and onto the ground at once. This mechanism essentially replaced the centuries-old human motion of grabbing and placing potato seeds into the ground by hand. As these blades reached the trench in the ground, they would mechanically release the seed in order to drop it into the ground. By using this planter, a farmer might plant a seed every six inches in the trench, saving a significant amount of time and energy when compared to the older process of planting potatoes by hand.

One of the blades that grabbed the potato seeds can be seen
in the center of this photo. It rotated forward as the planter
was pulled forward, grabbing a seed from the chute on the
left side of this photo.

After the seeds were dropped into the trench, the two discs attached to the back of the planter, called shoes, pushed dirt over the seeds, completing the process. What took several people several days to do with back-breaking effort – digging, planting, and covering the seeds – took a team of two horses and a potato planter like this New Aspinwall a matter of a few days. In the long run, a farmer could save himself time and energy, as well as the money, food, and space needed to hire extra hands.

From Dun's Review, vol. IV, no.6 (February, 1905), page 80.

         The maker of this potato planter, the Aspinwall Manufacturing Company, was founded by Lewis Augustus Aspinwall in Three Rivers, Michigan in 1884. Aspinwall had been working on his potato planter since perhaps 1861. His planter became very successful soon after it went on the market, and about seven years after starting his company Aspinwall acquired new facilities to build his machines in Jackson, Michigan, in 1891. By 1900, the company not only made potato planters but just about every other machine related to the potato crop, including sprayers, cutters, sorters, and diggers. Aspinwall would continue to make its implements until the early 1920s when it closed its factory doors. A combination of increased competition and the agricultural depression of the early 1920s may have contributed to the company’s demise. In 1925, L. A. Aspinwall himself went to work for The McKenzie Manufacturing Company of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, at the age of 83, perhaps because they had purchased his line of potato implements. Aspinwall died in 1930, at the age of 88.

Notes

Two stories regarding Aspinwall and his company can be found in the online Farm Collector article by Sam Moore, “Aspinwall Manufacturing Company: First in Potato Machinery Leaves Murky Trail” (July, 2000), which can be found here.