—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 21, 1976 98 This is the original barn built on the Hershey farm in 1842. Although neighbors said Jacob Hershey would never fill it mechanization and ad vanced production made his the size of the structure necessary. Fifth generation first gas engine By JOANNE SPAHR MANHEIM - ‘-This In denture made the seven teenth day of March m the year of our Lord on thousand eight hundred and fifty seven, between Jacob Hershey of Penn Township Lancaster County ... ” begins a deed to the Daniel K. Hershey farm, a beautifully kept and at tractive 90-acre property which rests solidly in a slight valley of the rolling hills near Manheim. Although close to town and bordering on urban dwellings, the farm is nevertheless peacefully secluded from neighbors and traffic by tall, lush com and a field of thriving tobacco just waiting to reach cutting maturity. Now secluded from the encroaching town by crops, the farm once had a different story. Back around 1825 when the property first changed hands for $3774.87 from a Brubkaer to Jacob LOW INITIAL COST. FAST EASY ERECTION. ALL STEEL LONG LIFE. 14’ High Opening Easy operating sliding doors; • Two Widths 40 and 48 Minimum 'ength 50 feet • Additions to length, in 25 sections to whatever length you wish • Multi-purpose building • Optional accessories so you can have the building just right for you For a better Farm Building deal it’s American. C. DONALD COX GENERAL CONTRACTOR & EXCAVATOR W Ralph Cheek, Sales Manager R.D. 1 Kirkwood. Pa. 717-529-2541 Hershey, a Mennonite minister, the farm was surrounded by woods. “I remember farming around stumps,” says Graybill Hershey, father to Daniel, and until nine years ago, owner of the property. “The farm had white oak, and to clear the land, they sawed the trees off and worked around the stumps until they could blast them out.” Graybill Hershey remembers a lot of the history of this five generation farm and has seen the rapidly moving improvement which came with mechanization. Probably the most in teresting sidelight in the farm’s history is that in 1896 the Hersheys were the first farmers m the neighborhood to have a gasoline engine. “Oh, yes,” exclaims the elder Hershey with a smile for this humorous memory from the past, “My father heard about this machine that ran with a little gasoline and a few buckets of water - and he went and looked at the gadget and bought it.” “The neighbors were all afraid of it,” he continues, “they thought it would blow up.” However, it never did, and it was one of the first in a line of many improvements to help ihe production of the farm. That first engine was eight horsepower which ran at 240 revolutions per minute and replaced a steam engine which was formerly used. Other key pieces of equipment in the history of mechanization of the farm / IPG6S IT'S PORTABLE... Wherever you need heat you II find IP gas ready to serve you Its ideal for heating farm buildings brooding water heating incinerators as well as for regular home use You II find LPgas is both economical and practical Let us show you the ad vantages there s no obligation whatsoever family farm had in neighborhood were the hay loader, the thrashing machine, and the manure spreader and loader. “The manure spreader and loader took away about as much of the hard work as anything we ever bought,” reveals Graybill Hershey. Other changes which speeded up production were the grain binder and the tobacco transplanter. Originally, the farm was in six fields - two in hay, two in grain, one in corn, and one in tobacco and oats. But, when the tobacco transplanter was added to the equipment on the farm, that crop’s acreage went up to eight Hershey, his great instead of only one. grandfather Jacob had a lot According to Graybill 1 Continued on Page 102]
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