I am not really convinced these rollers are for pressing juice/cane/whatever. Any references to this particular type being used in that manner? The ones pictured are gear driven while these found ones have steel wheels with a center axle. If gear driven, the gears would have been with them. If a wood/metal axle like on a wagon, most of it would have rotted away. This still could be a sod roller.
Wayward, I did not say .....
they were ....rollers out of a cane mill.
I specifically stated: "
Those look like they might be the “rollers” out of an old sugar cane or sorghum mill ....."It was then that Mart decided to give me
a Lesson on 20th Century farm implements and their uses.
As a young boy of about 5 or 6 years of age I remember them making molasses out of a patch of sugar cane my Father had grown. They set the mill and the evaporator pan up right in the cane field, built a fire under the pan, pressed the juice out of the cane, put it in the pan and boiled it down to make the molasses. The pan had partitions in it so that new juice could be added at one end and the molasses taken off at the other end.
And to this very day ........ I literally detest
the taste of molasses. And not because I watched them make them ....... but because
sugar was rationed and the only sweetner we had
was those damned ole molasses. YUCK!
Things to ponder:
1. Whatever it was it was “scrapped” out and gears & everything but what is pictures was sold.
2. If a horse drawn roller the axels would extend out farther for attaching a bearing and pull bar.
3. How big of a demand was there for a “sod roller” 75 to 100 years ago?
5. It’s not heavy enough for rolling sod.
6. They are labor intensive units: each piece of wood had to be cut with a bevel and then individually drilled thru the wood and the steel and then riveted to the wheel.
8. disking, dragging or harrowing works great at covering up seeds.
PS: Dragging around an old set of “bed springs” will not only level up a lawn or field but will also “flip out” small rocks and cover up any seed.
