L. K. Wood Builds Real Thresher
It was along about the summer of 1898 the brightly painted in yellow and brown Aultman and Taylor separator was given its first try-out in Jake Sorensne’s lot. The warm sunrays vibrated on the horizon. The tall green poplar trees in the back ground with the yellow and brown in the fore ground compiled a picturesque setting on the main thoroughfare of a pioneer village.
I was but a lad of ten years as I hastily followed the sound of the musical rhythm from the double geared separator, which was even more enchanting than that of the old Forester machine, which had come to town twelve years previous. How my heart throbbed with joy as I came inn sight of the most magnificent and latest design that had entered our village. The large curved spoked flywheel with its two way crank shaft and lifting arms that operated the unique straw rack, and the side shake grain shoe worked with such alternate motion and perfect balance it almost seemed human.
The prominent monogram of the late Cornelious Aultman and John Taylor on the long tailing elevator proudly displayed the wonderful men who founded and invented the ingenious machine that held such fame and prominence in the agricultural world for more than a half century.
Like many others who have contributed to the welfare of mankind and once popular line have been crowded out by cunning craftiness of modern methods to increase sales and cheat the purchaser. The Aultman and Taylor line was known in nearly every civilized country on the world. Today the name seems foreign to the present generation.
Since the first time in childhood days I was so fascinated with this make of thresher, I have had an innermost desire to build and own one for myself. It was not until now that I have been able to realize my youthful fond hopes. By constant and persistent labor with availing myself of every spare moment making each and every piece, amounting to hundreds of intricate and technical parts, I finally began the assembly.
On the last day of October I rolled the finished product off the erection floor. November 1st I gave it the first tryout with steam as motive power. The rapture that filled my being was almost equal to that of youth, as the perfectly cleaned wheat came pouring out of the grain auger and the straw was carried off the twelve-foot drag carrier. It has a capacity of fifty bushels per hour and will no doubt prove very useful in these strenuous times of scarcity of farm machinery to fill in and emergency in caring for the crops and prove a true replica of the old faithful prototype which has long since gone the way of mother earth.
