Adolf Nebgen, hereafter affectionately referred to as "Daddy," had long done custom hay baling in the Stonewall area with a horse-powered baler. This type of baler had removable wheels, used for transporting, which were removed at the site, so that the baler sat on the ground. A horse, mule or donkey, harnessed to a long pole and walking in a circle, provided the power. The hay being baled was usually in a haystack in the barnyard. The haystack was formed by setting a long cedar post into the ground and then stacking the hay around it in the fashion of a cone. When hay was cut in the field, it was first stacked in smaller piles called shocks. A long pipe was stuck under the shock, a rope was tied across from the front to the back, and the shock was then dragged to the barnyard to be added to the haystack. If Daddy's schedule permitted, the shocks were dragged from the field directly to where the baler was set up and fed directly into the baler. Because most farmers were cutting hay at about the same time and due to the difficulty of moving and setting up the baler, most of the hay had to be put into haystacks.
Daddy recognized the need for a mobile hay baler to more efficiently serve his customers. Since such an implement was not readily available, Daddy set out to build one of his own design. The 1937 John Deere Model 40 hay press, in this paper referred to as a baler, was only available mounted on steel implement wheels as were used on farm wagons at that time. These would not be suitable for transporting the baler on paved roads. The baler was designed to be used in a stationary mode, next to a hay stack, powered by a belt from an engine or a tractor pulley. An optional John Deere six-horsepower, water-cooled, one-cylinder engine was also available, but it proved to have inadequate power for sustained baling. Daddy purchased only the basic hay press from Krauskopf Brothers in Fredericksburg, Texas. As a very young boy, I recall that when the baler was delivered, it was placed on the ground next to a haystack in our barnyard, in the same fashion as the older horse-powered baler. Daddy jacked up our Ford Model A and attached a flat-belt sheave to the spokes of a rear wheel. with three J bolts. This same sheave was used to power our meat grinder for making sausage. The flat belt from Daddy's Ford Model T-powered wood saw was then used to power the baler. The Krauskopf representative demonstrated how to feed the hay into the press and how to drop the blocks into the press at appropriate times. A significant improvement in this machine was the up and down feeder that moved hay into the press instead of having to push it in by hand as in the old baler. Another big improvement was a tilting rack to hold the blocks, so that we didn't have to drop the blocks in by hand as in the old baler. After this "factory demonstration ," the baler modifications began.
The frame salvaged off a 1928 Chevrolet car was used to extend the frame of the hay press. The engine of this car was installed as the power plant. The engine is a four-cylinder, cast-iron block, overhead-valve engine developing thirty-five horsepower. Originally the engine was cross-mounted with just one flat belt sheave where the transmission had been. The engine developed too much power for a single belt, causing the belt to jump off under load. The engine was then mounted in-line, coupled to a Ford Model A differential with shortened axles and axles housings, and flat belt sheaves made from the Chevrolet's wheels attached to the axles. A longer primary input shaft was installed and a flywheel and an additional sheave was mounted onto the shaft. The two belts now transmitted all the power needed to drive the baler under heavy loads. Additional accessories to the power plant were a salvaged Dodge radiator and grill and a Ford Model T gas tank. The belt idler pulleys were made from Ford Model T front axle spindles and brake drums. The baler is mounted on two Ford Model A front axles--the rear one stationary and the front one set up for steering with a draw tongue.
With this baler, pulled by a Ford Model A, Daddy and a crew of two or more hired hands baled hay in the area around Stonewall, Johnson City, Blanco, Hye, Albert, Luckenbach, Willow City and all points between. Initially, the hired hands were nephews and neighbor boys. Daddy always fed the baler while the others strung and tied the wires, moved the bales and moved the baler from shock to shock. Meanwhile, Daddy had another crew of two or more nephews and/or neighbor boys doing custom firewood sawing in the same area with his home-built Ford Model T cord wood saw. Before the arrival of electricity in February, 1942, most people heated their homes and cooked with wood stoves, so there was a year-round requirement for wood.
In the hay field, the farmer was required to have at least two hands to pitch the hay onto the baler table. When a shock was nearly finished, Daddy would yell, "Go!" The person stringing the wires was expected to run to the engine, put it in gear and be ready to "pop-the-clutch" when Daddy waved. At the same time, one of the tablers was expected to run to the next shock and have a pitchfork full of hay ready to pitch onto the table the moment the baler stopped. Daddy always recommended that the farmer have three table hands so they could rotate. When there was only two, Daddy would mercilessly work their "butts-to-the-ground." There was always another job in another field waiting.
When World War II started, one-by-one the nephews and neighbor boys were drafted into military service. As time went by, they were replaced at the baler by Mama, my two sisters Agnes and Julia, and my brother Alton and I. Occasionally, some of the younger nephews also helped out. Eventually, both girls were married but Alton and I helped bale while in high school. When we got jobs, we helped whenever we could. I got a job in San Antonio, but on my days off I came back home and helped bale.
On October 12, 1953, Mama's father Joseph F. Jenschke died and Mama received a small sum of money. Daddy used the money to buy one of the first John Deere automatic pickup and automatic wire-tying balers, powered by a Wisconsin V-4 air cooled engine. He also bought a used Ford 9N tractor and equipped it with a Sherman two-speed transmission adapter to pull the baler. Now, one person, driving the tractor, could do the work previously done by five people.
When Alton learned that I had received my military draft orders, he volunteered for the draft and we both reported for U.S. Army basic training on October 17, 1956. By this time, many farmers had bought their own automatic balers and some of these also did custom baling. When the last two of his hands gone, Daddy retired from baling after more than thirty-five years of serving his neighbors with three generations of machines.
In 1997, after many years of urging by Albert Meier, Alton and I moved the old baler out of the barn where it had been stored for forty-four years. The spark-plug wires had been totally eaten away by rats and mice and the fan belt had become "petrified." After replacing those items and burnishing the points in the distributor, the engine fired up on three cylinders. Upon removing the valve cover, we discovered one stuck exhaust valve. After freeing it, the engine and everything worked as it had all of those years previously. Since then, my wife Marlene and I and my brother Alton and his wife Marilyn have baled hay every year at the Hill Country Antique Tractor and Engine Show.
Trying out the new
baler--June, 1937--Probably at Grobvater Jenschke's farm at Blumenthal,
Texas
Left to right: Lee Danz,
"Bunny" Metzger, Erin Danz, Marcus Nebgen, Adolf Nebgen, Eugene
Jenschke, Barney Danz, Joseph F. Jenschke
Marvin C. Nebgen
1814 Upper Liveoak Road
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
(830) 997-7939
mcnebgen@marvinnebgen.net