[AT] Was: Re: FW: Re: hello?, now "people never get rid" NOW: what are corn sleds?

[Herbert Metz]

Alan & Others
Yes nomenclatures were a regional thing.  Plows is the outstanding example
in this part of the world. That is for later;,,,,,, much, much later
<grins>.
Yes, as Gene mentioned, drag sleds were a part of farm life at that time.
Their use became less with the phasing out of horses, and became infrequent
with the shifting to hydraulics.
In '40s, '50s, in KS, corn was check-rowed in black, more fertile, flat
soil and was planted in the furrows of listed ridges
in the lighter soils. I think the opinion was furrows provided better
protection from the wind.  This was before hybrid seed corn and fertilizer.
Imagine taking two 7": moldboard plows (one RH and one LH) and securing
them together; now you have a lister.   A corn planter consisted of a
lister, with a sub-soiler iron bar that dug a 1/2" x 1/2" slot in middle of
furrow for the kernels of corn; a 10" dia disk on each side of the furrow
removed soil from near the bottom of the side, and pitched that soil onto
bottom of the furrow.  Press wheels compacted the soil on each side of the
seed, but left an unpacked, inverter V of soil for the young plant to come
up.  
When the corn was 4" to 8" tall it was sledded.  The sled was carried by
one iron wheel (16" dia with 2" outer edge turned 90 degrees to provide
width to the wheel) on each side of the furrow.  Immediately behind each
iron wheel was a 12" disk that pitched 2" of the side of the furrow up onto
the ridge. This removed any weeds that were growing at the origional ground
level.   Behind that was a 4" wide spade type shovel that dug 2" into the
bottom of the furrow and pitched that soil across the bottom of the furrow
to both support the young corn stalk and to cover any young weeds in the
furrow.  Sheet metal fenders contolled the depth of this soil added to the
bottom of the furrow and also prevented occasional excesses of soil from
covering these young stalks.
A week or so later when the corn was 10" tall, the ridges were considerably
flattened and widened by a conventional spike tooth drag harrow.
Soon after that a second sleding leveled the field by the disc behind the
sled wheel, now being moved several inches onto the ridge and being turned
so the disk pitched much soil into the furrow, and the spade shovel behind
the disk likewise being moved close to the center of the ridge and also
throwing soil into the former furrow.I am quite sure fenders were not used
for this sledding.
If time and conditions permitted, the final pass was with a six shovel
cultivator.  Goal was to throw more soil onto the corn, providing better
support (against the wind, etc) of the stalk, without going too deep and
tearing into many of the surface roots.  Also to get any weeds, because by
now the corn was tall enough to provide significant shading and thus retard
growth for any subsequent weeds.
Almost all row crop was two-row back then, later most farmers shifted to
three-row.   I have no idea about today.
Dad raised 100+/- acres of corn each year, probably averaged real close to
40 bushel/acre, all hand shucked, normally by him (couple years he hired
another guy to help).  I probably shucked 5 acres/yr, all unloaded by scoop
shovel, most of it was fed to 50+/- fattening calves,
Herb


> [Original Message]
> From: Alan  Nadeau <ajnadeau1 at comcast.net>
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Date: 1/27/2011 2:16:38 PM
> Subject: [AT] Was: Re:  FW: Re:  hello?,now "people never get rid"  NOW:
what are corn sleds?
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Herbert Metz" <metz-h.b at mindspring.com>
> To: <AT at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 7:57 PM
> Subject: [AT] FW: Re: hello?, now "people never get rid"
>
>
>  " He shortened the two tongues in the 2 row horse drawn corn sled and
made 
> a compact pull type two row sled.   The horse drawn sled took every other 
> row, with a pole connecting the two one-row sleds, and the operator sat
on a 
> seat in the middle between the two sleds. "
>
> Herb, different locale and terms, along with being a bit younger than you 
> are leaves me wondering just what corn sleds are/do.
>
> Al Nadeau