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Show FARM NOTES - BY LEW MAE PRICE County Agent The time to cut corn is before it goes into the pit silo, says La-Mar La-Mar Jensen of Ferron, who has constructed a simple but very efficient ef-ficient and economical cutter which nearly every farmer can , make or have made at little ex- j pense. j Following is a description of the j cutter as told by Merrill E. Cook, agricultural agent for Emery : county. ! Mr. Jensen salvaged the engine I block, crankshaft and flywheel from a discarded automobile. He then attached a five-inch pully to the front end of the crankshaft in such a manner that the flywheel fly-wheel on the front end of the crankshaft could be turned with a belt. A piece of heavy steel taken from a discarded truck spring was molded into a slightly curved knife and firmly bolted to the flywheel. This was designed to act as two knives attached to the flywheel. "The engine block was then firmly braced to one edge of a low-platform low-platform which measured about four by seven feet with the flywheel fly-wheel and knife protruding over the edge. "A small platform was built over the engine block with a chute running to the left side of the flywheel fly-wheel and up to the knives. An angle iron was placed at the end of the trough to save wear on the boards and to give the knivesi a better cutting surface. , For the purpose of keeping the corn from flying, a wooden hood was built over the knife with an opening at the bottom for the corn to fall through. The flywheel and knife were pput over the pit and a belt from the pully on a light automobile auto-mobile wheel was attached to the pully on the crankshaft. The automobile was put in high gear and the corn chopping began. The machine cut the corn almost as fine as the high-priced commercial commer-cial choppers. It didn't require very much power and chopped as fast as a man could push the corn into the machine. "Since that time Mr. Jensen and others have improved upon the machine. A sloping chute has made the machine easier to feed. Some have tried heavier Engine heads and flywheels than the old type Ford or Chevrolet and believe be-lieve them to be more efficient. Different power units have been used, all being more or less successful. suc-cessful. "Ten or more of these cutters were used last fall. Nearly all of them did cooperative work and - ... the people using them were well satisfied. "The cost of operation is, of course, cheap. One man said he used only ten gallons of gasoline and a rough measurement indicates indi-cates he had 80 tons or more of chopped silage. "This cheap method of cutting corn has helped considerably in the stimulation of corn silage production pro-duction in Emery county and especially around Ferron where this cutter has been demonstrated." |
