[AT] Check planting (was) Homemade tractors.

[Larry D Goss]

We had a hand planter for replanting.  We also used it for planting in the 
kitchen garden.  Dad used to reset the number of seeds or kernels for each 
drop in between each item that we planted.  The thing I remember is seeing 
my father stride straight across the field and placing the planter in the 
ground on every step.  In those days, seed bed preparation required plowing, 
disking, and harrowing with a drag behind it.  But Dad could plant beans, 
melon, corn, and some other vegetables without marking rows simply by using 
the hand planter.  I noticed last spring that the large melon farms here in 
the toe of Indiana no longer till the entire field.  Their version of 
No-till has a bunch of workers spread out across the fields planting hills 
of melons by hand.  When I saw this in action last spring, I thought they 
could have made use of a hand planter for the operation.

Larry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francis Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2007 9:29 AM
Subject: [AT] Check planting (was) Homemade tractors.


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Larry D Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
>
> I do remember "checking" corn while planting so
>> it could be cultivated in both directions with a horse.  Oscar Fahlsing
>> owned the farm to our east and he always checked his corn.  He would 
>> still
>> be cultivating it when it was over his head.  I don't know why Dad had
>> ours
>> checked.  We didn't own horses!  I guess he just liked the way the field
>> looked when the corn started growing.  There's a famous American artist
>> who
>> memorialized checked corn in one of his paintings.
>
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>    We never "check planted" but when we had to hand replant a row or spot
> my father always instructed me to plant 4 seeds to the hill. Of course all
> of the check planted corn I ever saw was "hill drop" controlled by little
> mechanical gates down in the boot of the planter. My father always said 
> "One
> for the blackbird, one for the crow, one to die and one to grow". He 
> always
> attributed that to the Indians but I'm not sure of its origins. I did 
> Google
> it and found dozens of slight variations of it but they all seemed to 
> start
> with the same "one for the blackbird" line. Some called for 3 seeds, some
> called for 5 seeds. Some mentioned cutworms, some mentioned moles.
>    BTW, I once read where some, know it all "expert", stated point blank
> that moles never ate roots, just grubs. Not much of an expert nor
> observer... Every farm boy has seen a mole go down a row eating every root
> sprout when it was about an inch long. Moles tend to choose where they 
> live
> and feed based upon the grub population but I have long observed them to
> have a varied diet often based on what was available. You can "drive" them
> away from a choice area over time by spraying it with  grub killing
> pesticides but they are too smart to starve down there just because some
> supposed expert says that they never eat roots...   :-)
>
>
> --
> "farmer"
>
> Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the
> well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are
> showing a new road.  ~Voltaire
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>