[AT] Hey Ralph!

[Len Rugen]

Back then, most fields were fenced and the final harvesting was done by grazing cows or hogs.  In high school, classes would raise money (probably not much!) by picking up ear corn after harvest.  We could sell it to the local feed mill, they would immediately grind it into feed.  Many thought that ground corn with cog and shucks made good feed to fatten their annual freezer beef.
 

Len Rugen

rugenl at yahoo.com


 


    On Friday, November 20, 2015 10:05 AM, Indiana Robinson <robinson46176 at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 I have a casual friend living in the next county east that farms fairly
large (I'm guessing around 1,200 to 1,500 acres) pretty spread out in 3
counties. What is a large farm depends a lot on what part of the country
you live in.
He uses kind of outdated equipment about like I used to use but I was
farming a lot smaller and close to home.
He really needs to cut back a good bit or retire. I believe he is about 77.
He works alone since he and his son do not get along and I have never seen
him hire any help. He also still keeps a couple of dump trucks and hauls
crushed stone from a local quarry.
As a result he is often combining soybeans in January or February and many
years he has to run corn in March or April if it is a bad winter. On some
fields harvest and planting are only a couple of weeks apart.
With the new hybrids etc. it is kind of amazing how well some of it stands
through the winter.
I do recall in the middle 1950's when we were pretty big in hogs my father
buying standing corn very cheap in the field and picking it, hauling it
home and storing it in some quickly built storage to feed to the hogs. Much
of it was down but he was able to get a very good percentage of it by
taking his time picking. Many of the ears showed end damage but that didn't
bother the hogs and it was a very good deal.



-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com
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