[AT] OT I'm getting older are you? (Really OT)

[charliehill]

Hi Herb,  yes the term snapping corn was used here too, interchangably with 
breaking.  It refered to breaking or snapping off the entire ear of corn 
with the shuck on and that is the way it went to the barn.  Shucking it out 
was usually done at the barn or sometimes the corn was just left in the 
shuck and individual ears were shucked as it was needed for feed.  Sometimes 
it was fed to the hogs in whole ears with the shucks still on or sometimes 
shucks still on but pulled back into the configuration of a badminton puck.

We didn't use any sort of tool to break the ear from the stalk.  It was kind 
of a snatch and twist your wrist all at the same time.  If you did it right 
it wasn't so hard.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herbert Metz" <metz-h.b at mindspring.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 9:55 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] OT I'm getting older are you? (Really OT)


> Charlie, your "broke the corn" term is new to me; removing the ear with 
> the
> husks intact was known as snapping, and removing the ear but leaving the
> husks on the stalk was shucking.   Opinion is shucking is a standard term,
> but breaking or snapping is probably a local term; will be interested in
> other responses.
> We are never too old to learn, earlier this week a good friend, antique
> enthusiast was showing me his farm machinery collection and his latest
> addition was a husker shredder which was nearly the size of a corn 
> sheller.
> Entire corn stalk was fed in the top, the shucked ear came out to the
> front, and the shredded stalk and husk came out the side toward the rear.
> Most of the outside was wood, it was in nice shape (always been shedded).
> I was unaware of such implement.  They found it in Ohio.
> Many corn cribs in Midwest were solid floor, wood slat sides (approx 1"
> between slats), and conventional shingle roof.    Our crib was approx 20'
> round grain bin metal bottom, sides were heavy duty wire something like 
> the
> bottom rows of hog fencing (only an ear of pop corn could have slipped
> through); two old telephone poles approx 4' apart provided a stability to
> this 12' tall crib, and the access.   Wood 1" x 4" boards were nailed
> across this opening.  No roof.
> We normally raised about 100 acres of corn.  Grandpa used a peg (?) for
> shucking, and took one row, I used the shucking hook (?) with hook formed
> out of center of the approx 2" square metal over the heel of ones hand and
> had the second row, Dad used shucking hook and had the next two rows, and
> helped Grandpa or me as necessary.  No dryers then so little corn shucked
> before first of Nov, then full efforts to get done before snows came. The
> only people that shucked corn in deep snow were feeder guys that were
> caught short of feed.  One of those things that you did only once.   Dad
> normally feed out 45 - 50 young yearling cattle. So, once a week, nice
> weather or cold, windy, snowy weather, we belted the tractor to our small
> Letz mill and ground the ear corn. The five family milk cows also got a
> smaller ration of feed, reason being their giving more milk, and they
> always were timely waiting outside the milking area of the barn.  Our team
> of mules were feed ear corn when they were working.
> I can remember that some years Dad sold the last bin of wheat to the
> elevators shortly before wheat harvest.  And several years he sold several
> wagon loads of ear corn to a neighbor who, likewise,  was feeding some
> yearlings, but I do not remember about his selling any shelled corn or ear
> corn to the elevators
> Herb
>
>> [Original Message]
>> From: charliehill <charliehill at embarqmail.com>
>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>> Date: 1/30/2010 8:05:46 AM
>> Subject: Re: [AT] OT I'm getting older are you? (Really OT)
>>
>> Dudley,  let me preface my response with some background.  I was born in
>> 1950 so I missed the old days.  However I was born in relatively poor
>> coastal NC.
>> A BIG tractor was a 2 row 30 HP rig and few farmers had one.  Most
> farmers
>> were still using mules or small 1 row Farmall A's and AC B's, etc.
>> Combines were around by then but they were either owned by big landowners
>> who had several tennant farmers tending his land or by guys that were
> purely
>> custom operators and maybe had a small farm of their own.  If I remember
>> right they got a minimum of  1/5 of the crop to pick it.  If it wasn't a
>> good crop they got more.
>>
>> Small farmers often used a one row picker and put their corn in a crib
> for
>> livestock feed or in some cases broke the corn by hand and put it in the
>> crib.  I can remember as a 7 or 8 year old helping break ear corn.
> Everyone
>> would take a row, break the ears off and throw them into a wagon that
> moved
>> along with us.
>>
>> My grandfather lived about 120 miles away so I wasn't there too often but
> he
>> was a pretty sucessful farmer for the times.  He had a Super A, and a
> Super
>> C and later on his son bought an M. (all Farmalls).  He raised a lot of
>> livestock and he had a large corn crib.  Some of his corn was stored as
> ear
>> corn and he had a fairly large hand crank sheller that he used to shell
> it
>> for feed.  My mother has that sheller now but I haven't gotten her to
> part
>> with it yet.
>>
>> As far as I know, by that time, early 50's all of the corn that went to
> the
>> elevator went shelled but I might be wrong.  I know the kind of cribs you
>> are talking about but I never remember seeing one around here.
>>
>> Charlie  (sleet and freezing rain this morning)
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: <drupert at seanet.com>
>> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>> Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 4:17 AM
>> Subject: Re: [AT] OT I'm getting older are you? (Really OT)
>>
>>
>> > ....
>> >> We still harvested ear corn fairly late. I just saw a new ear corn
>> >> crib going up last week.
>> > ...>
>> >> --
>> >> Have you hugged your horses today?
>> >>
>> >> Francis Robinson
>> >> aka "farmer"
>> >> Central Indiana USA
>> >> robinson46176 at gmail.com
>> >>
>> > The above two sentances in Farmers' response of a couple of days ago
> have
>> > reminded me of a question/curiosity that I've had for some time so, if 
>> > I
>> > ever expect to get some answers, I better ask it.  Question:  How do 
>> > you
>> > first remember corn being sold?
>> >
>> > We left the farm in Southern Illinois in 1954.  At that time, of 
>> > course,
>> > everyone was still harvesting corn with Pickers.  The corn that was
> wanted
>> > for feed or for later sale was stored in a Crib.  The corn that was 
>> > sold
>> > went to the Elevator on the cob.  The Elevator had a big sheller that
>> > could handle Wagon/Truck loads as fast as they could be driven in,
> lifted,
>> > dumped, driven out and the cycle repeated.  I don't recall ever seeing 
>> > a
>> > sheller on, or going to, a farm except for the small hand cranked jobs
>> > used for making chicken feed.
>> >
>> > Now fast forward forty years.  In the early nineties I was making
> frequent
>> > trips back to the Midwest.  Across the Northern parts of Illinois and
>> > Indiana I started noticing that many of the old Cribs were still
> standing
>> > but that they were much taller than those in Southern Illinois and they
>> > had a huge Cupola on top ... what/why were they so different I 
>> > wondered.
>> > After pondering this for several years I just happened to strike up a
>> > conversation with a farmer in Northern Indiana, maybe fifteen miles 
>> > from
>> > the Michigan line.  His farm had one of these "tall Cribs."  He told me
>> > they were far more than the cribs I remembered from the Southern part 
>> > of
>> > the state and that they were really more like the Elevator I remembered
>> > only on a smaller scale.  His Crib/Elevator was built in the late
> thirties
>> > from a kit that John Deere sold.  A wagon/truck could be driven down 
>> > the
>> > center and the mechanism was there to lift the front end and dump the
> corn
>> > into a "Gutter" that then carried the corn to one side of the Aisle
> where
>> > an endless vertical roller chain with "Cups" attached carried the corn
> to
>> > the top (i.e., up in the Cupola) where a Diverter would direct the corn
> to
>> > the Crib on either side.  This farmer said that when he wanted to sell
> he
>> > would hire a custom sheller who had a ton and a half truck with a
> sheller
>> > and International engine on back.  He said he had been farming since
> after
>> > the War and had always sold his corn shelled.
>> >
>> > I know this is just trivia but I am curious anyway as to how corn was
> sold
>> > - back before we started getting older - to the Elevators in different
>> > parts of the country.  For those of you whose memory does not stretch
> back
>> > to before Corn Heads/Harvesters came along and got well established I 
>> > am
>> > sure this is "real" trivia.
>> >
>> > Dudley
>> >
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