|
 Hand Dump Hay Rake - Heritage Homestead - Doniphan, MO Posted by:  YoSam.
N 36° 36.954 W 090° 49.664
15S E 694261 N 4054461
When I worked on a farm in the 40's and 50's this is what we used for hay
Waymark Code: WMN5XM
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 01/01/2015
Views: 3
County of marker: Ripley County
Location of marker: Franklin St., Heritage Homestead, Doniphan
Marker erected by: Doniphan Neighborhood Assistance Program
Equipment donate by: Lester Wright
Marker text: This rake is so effective that very few design changes were made from its beginning until it was replaced by a side-delivered model in the 1930s. It came in 8, 10 and 12 feet widths and could be pulled by a team, or adapted for one-horse use. The steel tines had enough play to adjust themselves to irregularities of the surface. This later model was designed to combine hand and foot dumping. The hay was raked into rows so it could be easily forked into a wagon. Various types of hay loaders could be used in combination with this rake. It was still in used to some extent with pick-up balers in the 1940s. Except for the shaft, or tongue, these rakes were all steel and weighed between 350 and 3450 pounds. They required little maintenance and operating them was referred to as "windrowing."
Web link: [Web Link]
History of Mark:
"A hay rake may be mechanized, drawn by a tractor or draft animals, or it may be a hand tool. The earliest hay rakes were nothing more than tree branches, but wooden hand rakes with wooden teeth, similar in design to a garden rake but larger, were prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and still are used in some locations around the world.
The typical early horse-drawn hay rake was a dump rake, a wide two-wheeled implement with curved steel or iron teeth usually operated from a seat mounted over the rake with a lever-operated lifting mechanism. This rake gathered cut hay into windrows by repeated operation perpendicular to the windrow, requiring the operator to raise the rake, turn around and drop the teeth to rake back and forth in order to form the windrow. In some areas, a sweep rake, which could also be a horse-drawn or tractor-mounted implement, could then be used to pick up the windrowed hay and load it onto a wagon.
Later, a mechanically more complicated rake was developed, known as the side delivery rake. This usually had a gear-driven or chain-driven reel mounted roughly at a 45-degree angle to the windrow, so the hay was gathered and pushed to one side of the rake as it moved across the field. A side delivery rake could be pulled longitudinally along the windrow by horses or a tractor, eliminating the laborious and inefficient process of raising, lowering, and back-and-forth raking required by a dump rake. This allowed for the continuous spiraling windrows of a classic mid-20th-century farm hayfield. Later versions of the side delivery rake used a more severe transverse angle and a higher frame system, but the basic principles of operation were the same.
Still later, a variety of wheel rakes or star wheel rakes were developed, with 5, 6, 7 or more spring-tooth encircled wheels mounted on a frame and ground driven by free-wheeling contact as the implement was pulled forward. These rakes were variously promoted as being mechanically simpler and trouble-free, gentler on the hay than a side-delivery rake, and cheaper to operate.
Currently a newer design called the rotary rake is in common use in Europe, and less frequently seen in the United States and Canada."
~ Wikipedia
Additional point: Not Listed
|
Visit Instructions:
A clear picture of the Marker or Plaque taken by you.
Also would appreciate you input on the text and location.
|