Cultivator - Douglas, WA
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 47° 37.263 W 120° 00.242
10T E 725108 N 5278532
Don't pass through the tiny hamlet of Douglas, WA too quickly or you'll miss all it has to offer.
Waymark Code: WM100HF
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 02/02/2019
Views: 3
Mostly, what it has to offer is an RV Park, a General Store, a historic church, some old agricultural equipment, a Seagate Pumper/Tanker and a vintage visible gas pump. This collection of machines and machinery stands along the north side of Highway 2, just east of the General Store. One of the agricultural implements is this cultivator.
In this, wheat growing, country, this cultivator would have been used almost exclusively for summer fallowing, ie. leaving half of a farmer's land fallow each season to allow moisture accumulation and weed control. Every couple of weeks, or longer, a farmer would have to drag his cultivator over his summer fallow to kill weeds and keep the top layer of soil loose to minimize moisture loss. This appears to be about a 12 foot unit, with 13 shanks and shovels. It has no drawbar or tongue, but we expect it was always tractor drawn. Again, we didn't find a manufacturer's mark of any kind.
An interesting (and highly useful) feature of this cultivator is that, given the weight of the shovels, shanks and attendant iron, the cultivator is equipped with a ground driven method of raising the shovels. A push on the long lever by the operator's seat lowers them with a clunk while another push raises them, more slowly than they went down.
