Any person, firm, or corporation who shall sell, offer or expose for sale, or use any machine to be operated by steam, or other power, for the purpose of husking or shredding corn or corn stalks shall provide such machine with safety or automatic feeding devices for the protection from accident by the snapping rollers, husking rollers, and shredding knives of any person using or operating such machine in the discharge of their duty, and such machine shall be so guarded that the person feeding said machine shall be compelled to stand at a safe distance from the snapping rollers; and any person, firm, or corporation operating such machine shall maintain thereon such safety or automatic feeding devices. The duty to equip such machine with safety or automatic feeding devices, as well as the duty to maintain the same, shall be absolute; and the exercise of ordinary care on the part of such person, firm, or corporation operating such machine shall not be deemed a compliance with such duty; and in case any person in the employ of such person, firm, or corporation operating such machine continues in such employment when such device has not been installed and maintained, as above provided, such employee shall not be deemed guilty of a want of ordinary care, on account of so continuing in such employment.