Let's talk rusty iron

Image Gallery Sam MooreSam Moore

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Check-row planters put corn fields on the straight-and-narrow

Editor's note: This is the third installment in a series about planting, cultivating and harvesting corn, and focuses on mechanical check-row planters.

Looking out at the flying leaves and spitting snow here in Ohio, it's difficult to think of spring planting. However, to continue the corn theme for one more month, here's the story of planting corn in check rows, a method used in most of the Corn Belt until herbicides replaced mechanical weed control.

In western Pennsylvania where I grew up, corn was drilled in 42-inch rows and not check-rowed. The average width of a horse was 42 inches, and a horse had to fit between the rows of corn to pull a cultivator, so the rows were planted 42 inches apart. We originally used a horse-drawn John Deere 919 two-row planter. Later, we cut off the planter's long tongue and pulled it with a Ford-Ferguson tractor. Ultimately, the planter was converted again for use with a three-point hitch.

Although corn drilling was a popular planting method in the eastern U.S., Corn Belt farmers, with their much larger farms, needed a machine to plant the seeds in checkered patterns so the corn hills could be cross-cultivated. Eastern farmers planted much smaller amounts of corn, and the weeds could be kept in check by frequent cultivation - as well as hand hoeing. But with the huge acreages of corn in the Midwest, a faster, efficient method of weed eradication was essential.

Check-row planting allowed for cross-cultivation. That necessity led to many inventions before the Civil War. One of the most successful inventions, described in last month's issue of Farm Collector, was a two-row corn planter that included a separate seat for a second person - usually a young boy - to ride and trip the seed-dropping mechanism each time the planter shoes crossed pre-marked lines.

Other planters were designed so the driver tripped the seed dropper himself, requiring only one person instead of two. I read about one farmer who didn't want to pre-mark his fields with a row marker, so he tied a rag on the planter wheel. Every time the rag hit the ground, he tripped the planter and dropped a hill of seeds. The rag idea went further when someone stretched a knotted cord across the field and then manually dropped the seeds each time a knot appeared, thus eliminating the need for a pre-marked field.

At first, the knots only signaled the operator to manually drop the seeds. By 1860, the knots in the rope were used to mechanically trip the seed droppers, allowing the operator to concentrate on driving in a straight line. Unfortunately, rope stretched when dry, and shrank when wet. It also broke easily, and the knots wore rapidly with repeated use. Thus, the knotted rope wasn't a perfect technique.

• FaceBook
• Digg
• Delicious

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print