Early 20th Century One-row Riding Cultivator

 This riding cultivator can be dated to as early as 1904, and it may have been made by the Emerson Manufacturing Company of Rockford, Illinois. A farmer used this cultivator to dig up unwanted plants, and to turn over and break up the soil along both sides of a row of corn. The farmer would hitch this cultivator to two horses that would pull it over a row of growing corn. The cultivator would pass over the corn while the four small shovels turned over the earth and dug up the plants alongside the corn. The farmer could adjust the shovels by pulling on the levers in front of his seat.

 Without any clear information about this cultivator, it is difficult to identify its manufacturer. Between 1850 and 1930, there were hundreds, possibly thousands of companies that made cultivators and cultivator attachments. Even though the manufacturer of this cultivator did not place its name on this machine, we can locate several part numbers as well as two patent dates.  The patent dates have led us to identify this cultivator as one manufactured by the Emerson Manufacturing Company. The patent dates are February 6, 1900 and June 7, 1904, and they appear to refer to patents 642795 and 761734, respectively. You can view Patent 642795, Gustav Jernberg's cultivator patent assigned to the Emerson Manufacturing Company, by clicking or touching here. You can view Patent 761734, Lewis E. Waterman's cultivator patent assigned to the Emerson Manufacturing Company, by clicking or touching here. In 1909, the Emerson Manufacturing Company would become the Emerson-Brantingham Company, maker of two tractors as well as a threshing machine here in this exhibit.