“It works as you walk,” proclaimed a 1929 rural newspaper ad for the
Ro Ho.
In the July 17 edition of The Western Producer, we asked for reader help in identifying an unidentified but useful gardening implement that has been a staple for market gardeners Bill and Jean King of Outlook, Sask., for many years.
You delivered with many e-mails and a few letters; some naming the machine, others providing historical anecdotes from your own experiences.
Spencer Early of Early’s Farm and Garden in Saskatoon once sold the units, which were made in Galesburg, Illinois. Phil and Ethel Crittenden of Drayton Valley, Alta., have a second model from a different manufacturer located 50 kilometres south of the one made in Galesburg. Neither manufacturer remains in business.
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The Ro Ho, sold by Early, reached the market in the 1920s and was built until the late 1980s.
The Rowe Manufacturing Co. also made Can’t Sag gates and hardware items such as ladders before expanding into Ford Model T and A truck bodies.
Later it made a wide variety of items for the farm and garden.
In nearby Bushnell, Ill., CS Norcross and Sons patented a matching tool in March 1937, which is the one found in Drayton Valley. It was known as the Norcross Weeder.
