[AT] here I go again

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

I believe I have heard dad mention a lister, I'll have to ask him for 
details. That’s definitely a different ballgame than anything I have ever 
seen. The reason I mentioned the use of a cultipacker instead of driving 
over the rows was something an old timer told me he did one year. It was 
extremely dry when it came time to plant tobacco. The land was really loose 
and powdery. They bedded the rows and then ran a cultipacker over them to 
firm them. Since tobacco is transplanted and not direct seeded, it was the 
only way they could get the land in order to firm around the roots. I guess 
the sword/row opener was pushing the dirt off the row rather than slicing it 
open.

John Hall


-----Original Message----- 
From: Ron Cook
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 12:55 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] here I go again

John,
     You should have tried convincing the agronomy professor at Iowa
State University that it was done that way.  Get you a near failing
grade.  I know.   The major implement manufactures all made the listers
and the cultivators that went with them, so it had to have been done in
other parts of the country where dry conditions prevailed.  It was
prevalent here from probably the early 1900's with horses and tractors
by the thirties on until around 1970.  It still has not completely
disappeared, though.  I plant my sweetcorn with a lister.  Not very
deep, mind you.  But it is the only mechanical planter I own and is
better than a stick poking holes in the ground.  My nephew didn't know
what it was that was taking up space in a shed he wanted to use and was
going to scrap it.  So, I plant my sweetcorn with a lister, 4 rows at a
time.  Silly, but fun.  I also use it to bed the potato rows.  It is a
bedder, to start with anyway and I don't currently have a potato planter
and likely never will.  That actual planting I do by hand.
     A cultipacker would be a big no-no here in these soils. Compaction
is the enemy.  You need to stay off the soil in the spring as much as
possible.  No spring plowing either.  That is another reason for the
lister.  The soil displaced by the furrow covers the weeds, etc with the
ridge.  After emergence, the sides of the ridges are cultivated with the
cultivators discs and the shovels cultivate either side of the row with
shovels.  Then the cultivator is changed so the next cultivation discs
the ridges into the row to cover the weeds and grasses growing in the
row.  From then on you would use a cultivator like you would have.
Sweeps and hillers. Probably only once or maybe twice with that outfit.
Chemicals stopped most of that tillage work and the fields became much
cleaner and the yields greater.  No, or reduced tillage methods have
practically eliminated the use of the cultivator and for sure eliminated
the lister planter.  Anyone younger than I might not even be able to set
one of the things to work correctly.
     These methods were only used on the flat river bottom land.  Not in
any hilly or rolling ground.  Plumb flat.  A wet year caused many
problems, too.  I had those problems with my sweetcorn patch this year
as a reminder of times past.
     There is a little information here,
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/machines_06.html
Here is a photo of a Super C and lister.
http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=farmall&th=863435
Ron Cook
Salix, IA
On 7/30/2014 8:27 PM, jtchall at nc.rr.com wrote:
> I have NEVER heard of anyone planting anything like that! Definitely 
> learned
> something. Anybody ever try pulling a cultipacker? Looks like that would
> have done the job without packing the land so tight on top of the seed.
> Looking at some of the modern planters with the combination of coulters,
> press wheels, row openers, row closers, and trash cleaners, its been quite
> the evolution in planting equipment over the last 50 years.
>
> John
>

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