[AT] Corn Binding/Hay

[Larry D Goss]

It worked fine for hand-cut corn, John.  Where we lived, you had to use 
stalks of corn that were still fastened to the ground as starters for a 
shock.  If you didn't, you could come out to the field after a wind storm 
and find half the shocks blown over.  I can't remember exactly how far apart 
the shocks were placed, but it was not only simple but was imperative that 
they be evenly spaced so the same amount of corn went into each one.  The 
reason was fairly simple -- we used a corn shock winch to tighten the stalks 
together before tying them with binder twine.  This was a simple device that 
consisted of a round cut off fence post that was tapered to a point on one 
end and had a rod about two feet long sticking through the other end so you 
could turn it like a windlass.  A rope about 10 feet long was fastened to 
the post near the point where the rod was located on it.  The rope had a 
steel ring fastened to the other end of the rope.   When the shock was full, 
you rammed the pointed end of the post through the shock at shoulder height, 
wrapped the rope around the shock and slipped the ring over one end of the 
rod.  As you turned the winch, the rope cinched the corn tight and a hank of 
binder twine would hold all the corn in position so the winch could be 
unwound and moved to the next shock.

The reason you needed the same amount of corn in each shock is because there 
was not a convenient way to adjust the length of the rope.  If you had too 
much corn, you couldn't turn the winch far enough to pull the corn tightly. 
Too little corn and you ended up turning the winch "forever."   The easy way 
to make sure each shock was the right size was to space them as evenly as 
possible across the field.  For some strange reason, shockin' corn was one 
of my favorite jobs on the farm.  I used to go out in the field with just 
the John Deere L loaded with the shock winch, a corn knife, and a roll of 
binder twine and shock corn from the time I got home from school until chore 
time on fall afternoons.

Larry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Hall" <jthall at worldnet.att.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Corn Binding/Hay


> Can't remember the name for it but dad made a wooden contraption to build
> the shock. You make an A frame about 6 foot tall and put a long board
> running out from it fastened at the peak of the "A". Once you get the 
> shock
> started, we then pulled it out and just kept piling corn around teh shock
> until it gets as big as you wish. We lashed ours together with a single
> strand of baler twine. We were using bundles from a binder so I don't know
> how well this would work for hand-cut corn.
>
> John Hall
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "George Willer" <gwill at gwill.net>
> To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'"
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 10:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [AT] Corn Binding/Hay
>
>
>> John,
>>
>> When we cut corn by hand many years ago we began the shock by tying
>> (twisting) 4 stalks together, two from each row, to provide the anchor 
>> and
>> each arm load was just stacked against them without tying into bundles.
>>
>> George Willer
>>
>>>
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