Rowley Homestead Farming Implements

Like most of the objects at the Rowley Homestead today, none of these farming implements belonged to Fred. They may have been similar to the machinery he used to grow his crops, but not these exact machines. Additionally, many of these implements are too large and too expensive for a farm the size of Fred’s. Other farmers with more land in this area, like the nearby Just Ranch, likely used more of these machines because they were growing more hay and making more money. Aside from hay, Fred also had a small vegetable garden down the hill by Pole Creek. Keep an eye out for rhubarb in this area; the plants growing today are the descendants of the rhubarb Fred planted in his garden.

The Mormon Hay Stacker (image 1), was a tall structure used to create large stacks of hay and functioned like a claw machine in an arcade. The claw picked hay up off of a wagon (the claw for this machine is currently sitting on the wagon; image 2), then horses or oxen pulled a rope to lift the hay and turn the machine to set it down in a stack. There is a functional model of a Mormon Hay Stacker located behind the real one, feel free to try it out.

The blue and yellow machine (image 3) with the slanted wheel is a plow. The blade under the seat of the machine digs rows along a field for a farmer to plant seeds in. The right wheel is intentionally slanted, as it is meant to roll in the last row the farmer dug, creating straight, evenly spaced lines.

The two metal and wooden contraptions are similar what Fred used. The bladed machine is another example of a plow (image 4) and the other is called a drag scraper (image 5). The plow is used to dig rows for planting and the drag scraper is used for digging up large obstacles, such as a tree stump or a rock. Both of these machines still require the help of a work animal, but the farmer walks along behind and directs the route using the wooden handles.

The green and yellow John Deere machine is called a mower (image 6). After the hay is fully grown, the farmer drives this through the field to cut the hay down. The long bar running along the ground has sharp triangles of metal (that are now covered with wood) that run along the bottom of the hay to slice it— like a scissor.

The blue and light-yellow machine with tines underneath the seat is called a dump rake (image 7). A team of oxen or horses pull this along after the hay has been cut down. The tines in the back of the machine create large piles of hay in rows throughout the field.

The green machine is called a bucker (image 8). This is used to lift and move the piles of hay created by the rake. Depending on what other machinery a farmer has, the hay could be moved onto a wagon, up to the Beaver Slide (image 9), or directly into a haystack.

The wooden ramp-like structure is a model of a Beaver Slide (image 9). A life-size Beaver Slide would be about the height of the tallest pole on the Mormon Hay Stacker. It is also used to create large haystacks: the hay is pulled using a system of ropes up the ramp and dumped over the tall side to create a tall, skinny stack of hay. This is the ideal shape for a haystack, as the top of a haystack will always rot, but if the stack is tall and skinny, the least amount of hay goes bad.

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