This is Halsey. My daughter Bessie took this photo of me driving our reaper-binder on my 80th birthday, July 4, 1918. Looked pretty good, didn’t I?

On our farm sustainability did not contradict efficiency. Indeed, one of the reasons the Hallock farm was able to sustain its operations in the 19th century was that we continuously adopted new inventions, like this reaper-binder. My father and his brother, Uncle Riah, were amongst the first in the community to buy one of these contraptions back in 1856, when I was just eight years old. It sure made it easier to harvest wheat and rye than cutting it all by hand with a sickle or cradle.

By 1918 when Bessie took that photo, farmers in this area were beginning to replace their horses with tractors. My son Hal and I farmed seven more years, until 1925, before we finally retired, but we never bought a tractor. Horses were so much better.

Like all equipment on the farm back then, this reaper-binder was horse-powered And truly, those horses were solar powered. We used the sun to grow hay and oats that we fed to the horses. No need for any fossil fuels on this farm! On top of that, their manure made good fertilizer, too.

Now step over to your left to the front of the main part of my barn. I want to tell you about it.