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

[Beal Gleason]

In the early 50s we had a MM sheller mounted on Diamond T 2Ton truck.  
IT had a 2 speed rear axel. We rigged a block on a hinge on the vacuum  
shifter so we could flip over and block the axel from shifting into  
high gear.                                     Then then we put a 2"  
solid shaft in the drive line right behind the cab about 2'long  
mounted on 2 pillow block  bearings with a pulley mounted between  
them. Then we put a belt up to the pulley on the sheller with  
tightener so that when we got ready to shell we could flip block over,  
tighten the belt, shift the rear end into high an we were ready to go.  
We had the pulleys sized so the engine ran about 40 miles / hour when  
the seller was at operating speed.  When we were ready to hit the road  
we loosened the belt, fliped the block and we were off.

WE shelled several thousand bu. corn over several years and it worked  
great.

Farmerbeal


On Jan 30, 2010, at 2:17 AM, drupert at seanet.com wrote:

> ....
>> 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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